8 
WOUNDS PENETRATING INTO THE CHEST. 
ment, to whicli the horse has been, in a manner, habituated,— 
long labour and fasting, and then the opportunity of gorging to 
excess ? or does it proceed from accidental repletion,—from the 
horse having got loose in the night, and found out the corn or 
the chaif-bin, and filled his stomach almost to bursting? There 
is nothing in the appearance of the animal that will enable us 
to discover the cause ; no yellowness of the skin, no twitchmgs 
of the panniculus carnosus, as some have described ; no charac¬ 
teristic local swelling of the abdomen, for in most of these cases 
both the stomach and intestines are distended either with gas 
or with food. We must get at the truth of the matter as well as 
we can, and then proceed accordingly. 
ON WOUNDS PENETRATING INTO THE CHEST 
OF THE HORSE. 
EXPERIMENTS MADE WITH A VIEW TO ILLUSTRATE THEIR CONSEQUENCES 
AND THE PROPER TREATMENT OF THEM. 
By MM. U. Leblanc, V.S., and Principal Editor of the Journal de 
Mtd, Vet., and A. Trosseau, M.D. 
[Coutinued from vol. vii, page 634.] 
7. Simple vjounds of the parietes of the chest, with injection of 
blood draivn at the moment from the jugular vein, and without 
the introduction of air. 
We injected into the chest of a horse, about eleven years old, 
four pounds and a half of blood just drawn from the jugular 
vein of the same animal. We had taken proper precaution that 
as little air as possible should insinuate itself through the wound, 
which was effected between the third and fourth asternal ribs on 
the left side, and about six inches from the spine. Immediately 
after the injection, the wound was closed by means of the usual 
suture. By tapping on the chest of the horse, the resonance 
was distinctly heard, and the respiratory murmur could be readily 
detected by auscultation. After the operation the resonance was 
increased, which we attributed to the introduction of a certain 
quantity of air when we punctured the chest. 
On being taken back into the stable, the animal ate with 
appetite a handful of hay which he found in the rack. Five 
hours and a half after the injection, the.motions of the flanks 
were slightly laborious—the act of inspiration was much short¬ 
ened— that of expiration was proportionably prolonged — the 
flanks were tucked up—the ears cold—and the pulse regular, 
full, and hard. On having recourse to auscultation, we could 
not detect any sound at the inferior part of the chest on the left 
