258 SCIIIRHUS OF THE OS UTERI AND VAGINA. 
when I arrived at the mill. 1 found the mare stretched on her 
litter, in great pain, and with a pulse quickened, hard, and full. 
I abstracted ten pounds of blood, and ordered injections of a 
decoction of linseed to be thrown into the vagina every half-hour. 
Her pains, of whatever description they were, soon ceased. 
On the two following days she was a little uneasy from time 
to time, and refused all food. 
The miller, to whom I had now communicated my fears as to 
the result, determined to bring the mare to my infirmary. She 
arrived, and immediately began to eat in her usual manner, with¬ 
out exhibiting the least symptom of pain. She remained in my 
stables twenty-four hours, and was then led back to the mill, 
apparently not at all distressed. 
Three days more passed on, and there was very little alteration 
in her; and then, at midnight, I was disturbed by messengers 
from the mill telling me that the mare was voiding her bowels 
through the vagina. I lost no time in hastening to her, and on 
entering the stables was astonished to find her dead, and a great 
part of her small intestines spread over the litter. In order that 
nothing of this extraordinary case might escape me, I delayed to 
open her until the morning. 
The uterus was of an enormous size, the body and horns of 
it forming one vast sac. It had penetrated into the chest through 
an enormous rupture of the diaphragm. This probably had 
been produced by her violent straining, and was the immediate 
cause of her death. Another rent appeared in the vagina, on 
the lower part of the left side near the symphysis pubis. It was 
through this aperture that the whole of the floating portion of 
the small intestines had escaped. The neck of this enormous 
matrix, in which was contained a foetus weighing 140 lbs., had 
scarcely experienced any increased development. The os uteri 
and the vagina were of the same character and texture; they 
were altogether fibrous. They might, with tolerable ease, be 
divided lengthways; but, transversely, they altogether resisted 
the ordinary bistoury, and I was obliged to employ a butcher’s 
knife in order to cut them. 
This scirrhous transformation of the neck of the womb and of 
the vagina was evidently the cause of death, by opposing an 
insuperable obstacle to the escape of the foetus, which on this 
account lived an intra-uterine life far beyond the natural time, 
and acquired this unusual size. 
Recueil, Nov, 1837. 
