VETERINARY OBSTETRICS. 
459 
The changes that had taken place in the parts I sent you 
were as follows : The cortical portion of the right kidney 
was highly inflamed, and so flabby that I could not cut 
it with a scalpel; but the medullary portion was not 
much altered. The left kidney had only a small patch 
about the size of a five-shilling piece of its cortical portion 
inflamed. 
The heart .—The right auricle much thinner in its walls 
and larger than natural; highly inflamed and quite black in 
colour. The inflammation continued down to the internal 
lining membrane of the right ventricle. There was also a 
rupture in the muscular structure of the right ventricle, 
which was about an inch in length, and extended down to 
the internal lining membrane, but not through it. The 
membrane investing the heart had given way about a quarter 
of an inch around the rupture* I suppose the rupture was 
the result of softening from inflammation of the muscular 
texture of the heart. 
Spleen .—The whole surface was covered with lumps, each 
about the size of a walnut, which contained what I thought 
to be highly congested venous blood. 
To Assistant-Professor Yarn ell. 
ON VETERINARY OBSTETRICS. 
By G. Armatage, V.S., Bicester. 
Gentlemen, —I am pleased to find that considerable 
space has been devoted in the Veterinarian to the important 
subject of u Veterinary Obstetrics.^ 
Having frequently experienced the difficulties attendant 
upon that character of presentation, viz., with the head 
turned backwards, both in cows and mares, in cases success¬ 
ful and unsuccessful, I am not a little interested in the pe¬ 
rusal of the various statements. 
The remarks commencing the letter of my esteemed friend 
and fellow-student, Mr. W. Robertson, of Kelso, to Mr. 
Gamgee, relative to the disadvantages under which we mostly 
labour at the outset, apply well in my case, as I generally 
find the animal has been brutally handled, and often 
tampered with for some hours, before I am summoned, by 
persons of very doubtful judgment and discretion in such 
matters. 
