432 
liKVIKW.—HIPFOPATHOLOGY. 
We will pass over simple hypertrophy, or the thickening of the 
walls of the heart and those varieties in which the walls are thick¬ 
ened, but the cavities, according to circumstances, either dilated or 
diminished, and speak of that Avhose essence is dilatation —the 
parietes unable to propel the blood—the muscular substance 
flaccid, and that flaccidity being one of the most striking appear¬ 
ances, when the pericardic cavity is opened after death. 
Mr. Pritchard gives a most graphic account of a case of this 
kind in the mare. I have never seen it in the larger animals, 
but I have often observed it, and ought, long ere this, to have 
recorded it, in our inferior patients. In the lingering consumptive 
varieties of distemper in the dog it rarely failed to constitute one of 
the lesions, especially if the disease was attended by much ema¬ 
ciation, and of which emaciation this powerless state of the right 
ventricle was probably the cause. I have always been accustomed 
to regard this lesion as the consequence, and not the cause, of the 
disease. As the animal gradually sunk under the ravages of the 
disease, general debility ensued; and, among other indications of it, 
inability of the right ventricle to close with its natural power on its 
contents, and, the necessary consequence of this being a gradual 
yielding of the enfeebled parietes to the pressure of the unnatural 
quantity of blood, or, in other words, hypertrophy of the right ven¬ 
tricle of the heart. 
But where I have had most opportunity of observing this disease 
is in the gardens of the Zoological Society of London. We have 
generally had a considerable number of quadrumana in our posses¬ 
sion, and we have too soon lost the greater part of them. About one- 
fourth of them have died of introsusception of the bowels, the cause 
of which we could never satisfactorily detect. It appeared not to 
depend on the food, for that had been unchanged ; there was, pro¬ 
bably, some atmospheric influence connected with the vile soil on 
which their domiciles are placed. We used to find the introsus- 
ception, and, in the majority of cases, the inflammation not extend¬ 
ing far beyond the invaginated part, although occasionally the 
greater portion of the small intestines, and even of the larger ones, 
was involved : but the heart was generally healthy. It was in¬ 
variably so, except when the lungs began to exhibit the ravages 
of phthisis. Both auricles and both ventricles were of their 
natural size, firmness, and colour. If, however, we were about to 
examine the victim of phthisis, and we had long recognized him 
by his peculiar cough—his gradual, and at length fearful emacia¬ 
tion, and his pallid or rather exsanguineous countenance, the gaze 
on which was painful and not soon forgotten—then, in addition to 
the usual lesions of this dreadful disease, we were sure to find 
strange thinning of the right auricle of tlie heart. Its parietes lay 
