A GLANCE AT ‘‘ THE VETERINARIAN.” 75 
divisions is probably to adapt the substance of the lungs to the 
form of the cavity in which they are placed, and to enable 
them more perfectly to occupy and fill the thorax.” No one, I 
should imagine, will dispute this rational explanation. When 
it is considered that “ the cavity in which they are placed” is 
continually varying its dimensions, and in some degree its shape 
likewise; and, moreover, when we come to add to this consider¬ 
ation, the circumstance of there being an organ in the centre of 
the cavity, between the lungs, which is not only continually va¬ 
rying its volume, but is in perpetual motion, and as continually 
altering its position ; and not only this, but the circumstance of 
there existing in the cavity large bloodvessels, which are at one 
moment full, at another collapsed ; when we come, I repeat, to 
take all these things into consideration, we shall find good rea¬ 
son for Mr. Youatt’s opinion—that the intention of division 
was to adapt the lungs to the form of the cavity in which they 
are placed.” 
There still remains one point of view, however, in which this 
subject presents itself to us; and that is, we apprehend, that 
the all-wise hand of Nature, in packing and adapting these or¬ 
gans in the cavity enclosing them, had in view their interior 
arrangement at the time, as well as their adaptation to the ca¬ 
vity in which they are placed. When a milliner has a lady’s 
dress to send home, and has to pack it up in a box,” she 
takes great care to fold it in such form and compass as to reduce 
its volume to all convenient dimension; at the same time she is 
specially concerned about preserving from all injury or disar¬ 
rangement the various frills and flounces, and trimmings and 
stiffenings with which it is bedecked. In like manner, dame 
Nature has packed the lungs. She has cleft or divided them in 
such manner as to reduce them to all convenient shape and di¬ 
mension, at the same time that she has taken every precaution 
against disarranging the interior mechanism, or rendering their 
approach and permeation inconvenient to the pulmonary vessels. 
Which of the two were first created, the lungs, or the cavity 
containing them ? The lungs : and therefore it is not they that 
were originally fitted into the thoracic cavity ;—the thorax was 
formed around and upon their superficies. 
Mr. Spooner’s Case of Strangulation of the Intestines. 
Mr. Percivall has given it out as his opinion (and I feel dis¬ 
posed to assent to it), that the strangulation in these cases often 
supervenes upon what was, in the onset of the disorder, but sim¬ 
ple cholic. Spasmodic action must, in all sorts of ways, thwart 
