450 
EXPENSIVE DISEASE OF THE HEART. 
sac contained about two gallons of a l'ght, straw-coloured 
fluid, commingled with lymph. Can any cause be assigned 
for such a disease as this? Is it of a dropsical diathesis, or 
is it inflammatory in its nature? This is the second case of 
*■ 
heart disease which I have met with during the last fortnight, 
To Assistant-Professor Varnell. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ABOVE CASE BY ASSISTANT- 
PROEESSOR VARNELL. 
On the receipt of the above letter, 1 wrote Mr. Fuller a 
brief reply, the substance of which will be embodied in the 
remarks which I am induced to make on the case. 
The paucity of recorded cases of pericarditis in veterinary 
literature would lead to the inference that they were of rare 
occurrence in domesticated animals. I am, however, inclined 
to think—nay,I feel almost confident —that those practitioners 
who have made it their especial object to examine, post¬ 
mortem, the animals which have died in their practice, will 
agree with me that diseases of the heart and its membranes are 
not so rare as might be supposed. Their not being more 
frequently noticed. I think may be satisfactorily accounted 
for. In the first place, the symptoms are often so very ambi¬ 
guous that an incorrect diagnosis is likely to be formed, by 
which, should the animal die, an imperfect examination is 
almost certain to be made, so that the true nature of the 
disease is not disclosed. It may also arise from the following 
circumstances. On opening the cavity of the chest, should 
the pleura and lungs show no particular lesions, the heart and 
its membranes are perhaps not suspected to be diseased; or 
if a variable amount of fluid be found in the pleural cavities of 
the thorax, or in the peritoneal sac of the abdomen; or if any 
of the abdominal viscera are engorged with blood—which is 
very likely to be the case, from imperfect functions of the heart 
—then the death of the animal is thought to be satisfactorily 
accounted for, when, in reality, the appearances are simply 
the effects of heart disease. 
Mr. Fuller remarks, in his communication, that he has 
never seen a case in which the pericardium was so extensively 
diseased as in the one in question. Now, if he carries his 
thoughts back to the period of his pupilage at the Royal 
Veterinary College, he will remember to have seen several 
splendid specimens, showing the effects of pericarditis, both 
in the horse and ox, some of which were identical in their 
character with the one recorded by him, and in which the 
