80 
OPERATION FOR STONE IN THE BLADDER OF 
A MARE. 
Dj/ M. Renault, Professor of the School of AI fort, and 
Principal Editor of the ^^Recneil.’* 
The patient was a mare of small size, about fourteen years 
old. During the last fourteen or fifteen months tlie proprietor 
had observed that the mare discharged lier urine with consider¬ 
able pain, and not in her usual manner. That pain had sensibly 
and progressively increased since the commencement of the last 
winter. She frequently put herself in the posture for urining, 
and then discharged a very little, and sometimes none at all. 
When it was voided with less difficulty, it was of a deep yellow 
colour, turbid, thick, and a deposition was perceived on the 
pavement on which it had fallen; but when it was discharged after 
long and painful efforts, in addition to the preceding characters, 
it was often charged with bloody mucus. 
Alarmed at this last circumstance, and which he had often 
observed in the course of the preceding month, and although 
the mare continued to work, and had not lost her appetite, the 
owner determined to bring her to Alfort for advice. 
The symptoms were too plain for me not to suspect the exist¬ 
ence of a vesicular calculus, and I was about to satisfy myself by 
direct examination, when she attempted to stale precisely in the 
same manner which the owner had described. She put herself 
in the usual position, and during some twenty extraordinary 
efforts which she made to void her urine, I saw the lips of the 
vulva widely diverge; and the orifice of the urethra, pushed 
by every effort to the very mouth of the vagina, appeared half 
open in the midst of a large fleshy projection, covered with 
mucus. A little urine, ropy, and loaded with sediment, was 
ejected at each succession of expulsive contractions, and some 
drops of blood appeared at the inferior angle of the vulva. 
I did not hesitate to give it as my opinion that there was a 
stone in the bladder, and that it had a considerably roughened 
surface, founded on the discharge of a small quantity of blood, 
with which each violent contraction was followed : in fact, this 
could only proceed from slight lacerations of the mucous mem¬ 
brane of the urethra or the bladder; and these lacerations could 
not be produced by a calculus of a smooth and polished face. 
I cut my nails close, and, having anointed my hand with olive 
oil, I waited until the mare was a little calm, and then intro¬ 
ducing my hand into the vagina, I endeavoured to ascertain the 
presence and the volume of the calculus. At first 1 could not 
