SPLENIC APOPLEXY. 
513 
should be rather inclined to regard the sudden filling of the 
spleen with blood as the effect of a pre-existing morbid state 
of blood, and not the cause, and if so, “ splenic apoplexy ” 
might be considered a misnomer. The disease was in reality 
one in which some of the constituents of the blood, from 
various causes, underwent peculiar changes ; and in conse¬ 
quence of the disturbed state of the organism thereby 
produced, the blood was brought to a stand-still in the 
spleen, and hence the large increase of its bulk. This being 
the case, the only use of retaining the term “ splenic apo¬ 
plexy” would be to distinguish one blood disease from another. 
In all parts of the country a large quantity of cattle, 
sheep, and even pigs, were being lost from affections which 
clearly belonged to the blood. In some of these cases the 
constituents of the blood were increased in quantity, in others 
they were diminished, while in particular instances they 
had even undergone chemical changes. He would give some 
familiar examples. There is a disease called “ black-leg'* in 
cattle, which prevails in Yorkshire and in some other coun¬ 
ties. It is the pest of many a farm, and a rearer of short-horn 
cattle, in particular, often, loses a great number of his young- 
animals from the affection. He had named this disease 
Hcemato-sepsis, because of the septic condition of the blood 
with which it was associated. Then there is another malady, 
called u red water” in cattle, a disease to which cows are in 
some parts of the country more prone than oxen. It is a 
disease, too, in which the blood undergoes peculiar changes, 
and in which the albumen and also the colouring matter of 
the red cells are evacuated through the medium of the kidnevs, 
constituting the affection now known as Hremo-albuminuria. 
There are other cases, in which the blood is brought to a sudden 
stand-still, sometimes in one part of the body and sometimes 
in another. Cases of this sort occurred in Wales last year, 
and they were truly described as examples of stagnation of the 
blood— Hremostasia. All these instances showed that there 
were several affections of a fatal character which primarily 
manifested themselves in certain changes of the blood, and 
he believed that splenic apoplexy was one of those affections. 
The causes which gave rise to blood affections were various. 
For example, the fluid was likely to become contaminated by 
the inhalation of any noxious material, and in very many 
instances life had been suddenly cut short by the influence 
of noxious vapours. Many persons had supposed that in 
splenic apoplexy the changes originally wrought in the blood 
were due to the inhalation of ordinary malaria. This opinion 
received some degree of support from the circumstance that 
xxxv. 33 
