378 
ACCIDENTS TO HUNTERS. 
By TV. Watson, M.R.C.V.S., Rugby. 
Unavoidable circumstances having prevented my sending 
to you my usual paper on Botany for this month's Journal, I 
•have ventured to forward you particulars of the following 
accidents to horses, which were brought under my notice 
during the last hunting season, hoping they will prove 
interesting to the readers of your Journal. 
Fractured rib penetrating the right ventricle of the heart. 
A black horse, six years old, the property of Colonel 
Harrison, of the Dragoons, was brought from Birmingham 
by rail to Rugby, on the morning of Thursday, November 
18th, 1859, and ridden to the meet of the North Warwick¬ 
shire hounds, at Bilton Grange, about two miles from 
Rugby. A fox was found, and the hounds went away fast. 
At the third or fourth fence, Colonel Harrison’s horse fell 
with him, after getting over the fence; but on recovering, he 
appeared not to have hurt himself. The Colonel, however, 
being somewhat shaken, rode him quietly back to Rugby, 
fancying, as he did so, that the horse staggered a little, and 
had received a slight injury to the back. He was left at our 
stables, with orders to have some gruel given to him, and 
afterwards to be taken to the station to be put on the next 
train for Birmingham. 
He had only been in the stable a few minutes, when a 
groom came in haste to tell me that the horse had suddenlv 
fallen down, and he thought something serious was the 
matter. I went immediately, and was only in time to see 
the animal give a few faint sighs, and without a struggle 
expire. 
By the request of Colonel Harrison, I made a post-mortem 
examination the same night. The only thing worthy of 
notice externally was the extremely pale and bloodless 
appearance of the visible mucous membranes, which, with 
the suddenness of death, induced me to come to the opinion 
that some large vessel in the vicinity of the heart had been 
ruptured. On removing the skin, bruises were found in 
different parts of the body, caused probably by the fall, but 
one in particular was noticed opposite the region of the 
heart, which induced me to open the thorax first, when I 
