674 VETERINARY SCHOOL AT ALFORT. 
2. That two horses could take, without being seriously affected, 
the one an ounce, and the other an ounce and a half of arsenious 
acid, while five others were destroyed by similar doses. 
3. That ecchymoses, sometimes extensive and numerous, in the 
bladder, and particularly traces of acute inflammation under the 
serous membranes of the cavity of the heart, with erosion of the 
mucous membrane of the right side of the stomach, and also of 
the caecum, and sometimes the colon, are the usual lesions of this 
kind of poisoning. 
4. That however serious may be the lesions of the large intes¬ 
tines, chemical analysis has demonstrated traces of the poison 
only in two cases out of seven; while in all of them there has 
been found a sufficient quantity of the poison in the contents of 
the stomach. 
5. That when the hydrate of the peroxide of iron has been 
swallowed immediately or very soon after the arsenic, there 
has been good reason to hope for success. 
Puncture of the Ca;cum. —This operation, formerly prac¬ 
tised with success in cases of flatulent colic, had long fallen into 
disrepute, when M. Bernard, professor at Toulouse, lately 
recalled the attention of veterinarians to it. M. Maillet has 
practised it with success on an old ass, four days afflicted with 
stercoral indigestion, and brought to the school in a desperate 
state. The colic immediately ceased, and the puncture made 
with a trocar very shortly healed. 
Animal Chemistry. —Some new and interesting researches 
have been made into the composition of the brain, and particu¬ 
larly of the white or medullary, and the grey, or cineritious 
substances of which that organ is composed. A given quantity 
of the medullary substance contained fourteen times as much 
white fatty matter as an equal weight of the cineritious, and a 
less proportion of water. This, which had been proved in the 
human brain, was found to be the case in the brain of the horse. 
Although aware of the usual composition of the calculi which 
are found in the bladder of the solipede, it is interesting to in¬ 
quire whether there are not occasional variations. A calculus 
that entirely filled the bladder of a horse, and was sent to us by 
M. Rigot, the professor of anatomy, was found to contain eighty- 
three parts of carbonate of lime, three parts of carbonate of mag¬ 
nesia, and about one part of phosphate of lime. This result, 
proving that the base of the calculus is carbonate of lime, shews 
also that it is not altogether destitute of phosphate of lime, but 
may perhaps yield one hundredth part of that compound. 
Many natural and artificial substances, which, accident at first, 
and experience afterwards, had employed in combatting the 
