INTO THK VEINS OF LIVING ANIMALS. 
249 
sion. I had scarcely turned myself round, when I heard a sort 
of gurgling like that of air rushing into a bottle while the liquid 
is poured out. I took little notice of it, for I had heard a similar 
sound many and many a time without any harm following, and, 
my assistant having returned, I continued the bleeding. After 
having filled a second vessel, I stopped the bleeding in the ordi¬ 
nary way ; that is to say, by piercing the edges of the orifice with 
a pin, and twisting some of the hair from the mane round it. I 
then led the animal back to his stable, which was only a few paces 
distant. 
1 had scarcely got him into the stable when he began to 
tremble all over—his respiration was laborious and plaintive— 
the pulse small, irregular, and quickened—he groaned deeply two 
or three times, and then fell on his litter as if he had been struck 
with lightning;. 
“ I will not dissemble my affright at these unusual and alarm¬ 
ing symptoms, and my apprehension that the animal would imme¬ 
diately expire. I had no doubt that his death w'ould be attributed 
altogether to me, since I had advised the bleeding, and performed 
it myself. Nevertheless, in spite of my agitation, all the circum¬ 
stances which had preceded and accompanied the bleeding ra¬ 
pidly presented themselves to my mind, and especially I recol¬ 
lected the noise which I had heard at the moment when I had 
ceased to press the vein. This was a sudden ray of light, and I 
felt assured that the whole was to be attributed to the introduction 
of air into the vein. 1 will confess that, at that time, I knew no¬ 
thing more of the nature of the accident than I had read in Bichat’s 
Treatise on ‘‘Life and Death.” I recollected that that celebrated 
physiologist had asserted that a small quantity of air was suffi¬ 
cient to destroy the animal, and that he would die as soon as the 
blood charged with air reached the brain. Acting on this belief, 
which w'as an erroneous one, no doubt, (but we may be permitted 
to err w'ith Bichat as our companion), I thought that another 
bleeding offered the only means of saving the animal; I hastened 
therefore to withdraw the pin, and to permit the escape of a new 
stream of blood. As it ran, the horse seemed to regain new 
life—he made several fruitless efforts to rise, and in five or six 
minutes after this new bleeding he accomplished it. When he 
was up, his pulse became sensibly developed, and lost its rapidity ; 
the respiration was fuller, and less precipitated ; and half an hour 
after the accident all danger had disappeared, and he was in the 
same state as before the first bleeding. A new, and very remark¬ 
able symptom, however, began to appear—the animal seemed 
to acquire an extreme degree of sensibility over the whole of the 
right side of the body (the opposite one to that on which he had 
been bled), accomj)ani('d by a most violent itching. He laid 
