800 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
wound were so much thickened that the opening could he 
scarcely felt. The fseces, which had accumulated, were again 
removed; the animal could not or was afraid to void them in 
the usual way. The cold water and diet were continued. A few 
days after all was well, and the ox was put to his usual work. 
CRETACEOUS DEGENERATION OF THE HEART, 
HYPERTROPHY, &c. 
By M. Heuran, Veterinaire, Landes. 
In the month of March, 1861, the author was sent for to 
attend an ox, supposed to be very ill; but though he went 
immediately, he found the animal had died before his arrival. 
He at once made an autopsy. On removing the ribs a con¬ 
siderable substance was perceived in the anterior part of the 
thorax, which proved to be the heart; behind it was another 
organ, of a rose colour, shrunk, and very much wasted: this 
was the lungs. This latter, besides its general atrophy, had 
only the rudiments of its anterior lobes left; they formed two 
small, vascular appendages, scarcely an inch in length. There 
were no traces of inflammation in this organ; three tumours 
of a caseous nature were found, two on the right and one on 
the left, easily compressed by the fingers (crude tubercles). 
The pericardium was interiorly of a bright-red colour; the 
surface was rough and irregular, presenting a great number 
of eminences of various sizes, fewer at the base and apex, but 
numberless on the lateral surfaces. These eminences had 
attained the size of a lentil in some parts, while in others 
they were no bigger than a piAs head. In making an in¬ 
cision into these morbid products, it was found that they 
contained a nucleus in the centre, formed of calcareous particles, 
closely united, and of a receptacle or capsule enveloping the 
mass in such a manner as to connect it with the visceral coat 
of the pericardial sac, by means of a small peduncle or root, to 
a substance of the same nature enclosed in the tissue of the 
pericardium. This receptacle was formed by a fold of the 
serous membrane alone for the visceral layer, and by the 
serous and fibrous for the parietal layer. In both cases the 
membrane was thickened, but there were no traces of ulcera¬ 
tion. A singular fact is that, with all these alterations of 
the subjacent serous tissue, the change of a colour and the 
thickening of the serous membrane itself, the pericardial sac 
did not contain one single false membrane; and there was 
hardly any more serum than in the normal state. The form of 
the heart was somewhat modified, the twist from right to left 
