616 
MISCELLANEA. 
The artery was full, but without acceleration of pulse. The 
faeces were of their natural consistence. The tumour produced by 
the blow of the horn was twice the size of a man’s head. It ex¬ 
tended from the superior part of the flank to the very base of that 
region. An incision was made through the integuments, on the 
centre of the tumour, and some portions of half-masticated food 
protruded, proving that the abdominal muscles and the walls of the 
paunch had been ruptured by the horn, although the cutis had not 
been penetrated. Having enlarged the incision, he introduced his 
hand, and found a solution of continuity of both the paunch and 
the rumen, through the whole extent of the excoriation on the in¬ 
tegument—^that these torn edges were ragged, and that between 
seven and eight pounds of food had escaped from the paunch, and 
were impacted between the parietes of the abdomen and the skin. 
The whole of the opening had closed, and the food no longer 
escaped through it. He well cleansed the wound, and cut ofl' a 
considerable quantity of dead and black portions that were torn and 
hung between the paunch and the abdominal parietes. A slight 
compression with pieces of soft rag effected an almost immediate 
reunion of the divided parts. He prescribed a restricted diet, but 
the cowherd disobeyed his commands, because the ox was in good 
spirits and ruminated, and shewed a desire to eat. 
Two days afterwards the compresses fell off; the edges of the 
wound more rapidly approached to each other, and covered, by 
degrees, the wound in the paunch. The edges adapted themselves 
to each other, and promised a speedy and complete reunion. 
Fifteen days afterwards, M. Cruzel saw the ox, which they had 
been eagerly fattening for the butcher. He had evidently gained 
flesh. The incision was cicatrized, except that there remained, a 
little below it, a round tumour as large as a fist. It was a true 
abscess by congestion, the chief seat of which existed in the sup¬ 
purating wound of the abdominal muscles and of the rumen. The 
proprietor having declined to sell the animal to the butcher, he 
objected to this abscess being opened to the bottom, and Mr. Cruzel 
was compelled to be satisfied with a superficial incision. 
Some time afterwards the beast was destroyed, and he had an 
opportunity of examining the cicatrization of the paunch. The re¬ 
union was entire on the inner surface of that organ; but the large 
and numerous ridges which bordered the wound indicated its ex¬ 
tent, and the loss of substance which it had sustained. The ex¬ 
ternal surface of the paunch adhered to the abdominal muscles. 
A cyst, containing a little pus, was found in the centre of this 
adhesion. It was the origin or the remains of the abscess just 
referred to. 
