ON POUCHED HEART. 
106 
(super-acetate) and potass (nitrate) would be suitable agents for 
the purpose. By some such means, the proportionate amount 
of fibrine held in solution, as well as the amount of coagulation, 
rapidity of the process, &c. would he arrived at. The arterial 
blood would be afforded in the process of slaughtering. The 
venous blood by the ordinary operation of bleeding. 
It may be objected, that pigs (unless the heart in them shall 
be found in the same state) as animals that fatten very rapidly, 
and perhaps to a greater extent than almost any other, may be 
taken as examples of the incorrectness of this view. But they 
are peculiar, and possess the property of increasing almost in¬ 
definitely in bulk, and certainly of great increase in the ca¬ 
pacity of the belly. The pig, moreover, never has so great a 
quantity of what the butchers term “ loose fat” in the belly as 
the cow, in proportion to its weight. 
Another reason why the heart may not be diseased in the 
pig, is, the animal is generally killed very young, while the 
elasticity of the ribs is greater. And further, it is believed that 
the ribs of the pig have less density; yet it is no uncommon 
thing for fatted hogs to die of disease when just about to be 
killed for the market. Post-mortem examinations made by 
veterinarians have shewn that sudden death in fat horses, cows, 
and stall-fed oxen is frequently caused by rupture of that great 
reservoir of venous blood, the spleen, commonly called the melt. 
In the fat sheep, the heart does not become so frequently 
pouched, and what has been said of the pig may be argued with 
respect to the sheep, the age at which it is slaughtered, &c. It 
is to be noticed that the pericardium (heart bag) in them 
quickly degenerates into a fat state. This is calculated to 
impede the heart’s movements, and so in them the disease of 
the lungs is more common. Here, too, although the mis¬ 
chievous effects of fattening are evident enough, yet, as stated, 
there is but an approximation to pouched heart in the more 
frequent disease of another organ vitally important, as well as 
local dropsy of the heart-bag, and other serous cavities. 
The disease called “ red water,” or acute dropsy, is an in¬ 
flammatory state of the serous membranes, in which the colour¬ 
ing matter of the blood is mixed with the effused fluid. The 
susceptibility to this disease in the fat Leicestershire sheep is 
confessedly common. Indeed, the origin of tubercle, of gland¬ 
ular disease, nay, of cancer too, is of an inflammatory nature, 
and arises from a morbid condition of the blood. The complaint 
so common in thriving cattle, called “the black leg,” arises from 
a diseased state of the blood rapidly induced, the liquid portion 
of the blood being thrown out of the bloodvessels beneath the 
cutaneous surfaces, where it acts as an extraneous and as a 
