408 MENSTRUATION DURING PREGNANCY. 
With proper care, the mare soon recovered her health, which, 
unfortunately, was not the case with the operator; and I pro¬ 
ceed to record the following, as a proper caution to all who, like 
myself, may be led to become amateur practitioners upon the 
domestic animals. 
The colt, previous to its birth, had commenced to putrefy, 
and, after giving directions in regard to the management of the 
dam, I proceeded to wash my hand and arm with care, in order 
to remove the putrefactive odour it had contracted from the colt. 
For this purpose I used strong soft soap and plenty of cold 
water. After a thorough ablution I raised my hand to my nose, 
and, finding that the odour was still perceptible, I again washed 
with care, and this time with warm soap suds, and rinsed with 
pure warm water. 
After two or three days my arm became severely inflamed, 
and swollen nearly to the shoulder, and soon suppuration occurred, 
and I was weeks before the arm became sound, and months be¬ 
fore 1 regained my former health. 
It is not unknown to physicians and surgeons, that animal 
matter, when undergoing decomposition, passes through a kind 
of fermentative process, in which a poison is generated, that, if 
absorbed by the living tissue, is liable to cause a similar fer¬ 
mentation in the living flesh, which tends to destroy the part 
affected, or the life of the patient. 
Let all who have to do with diseased animals exercise all due 
caution that they do not become inoculated with the matter 
from wounds, or they, too, may have a case to record that is 
much more pleasant to present to the public than to suffer in 
propria persona. 
C. H. Cleaveland, M.D. 
Waterbury, Vt., March, 1852. 
Remarks. —We hope the above communication will serve as 
a caution , and be regarded in the light of a learning voice from 
one who has suffered , and now comes forward, under generous 
impulses, to save his fellow-man from a fearful death; yes, 
death; for every medical man is well aware of the dreadful 
penalty that almost universally attends the inoculation and ab¬ 
sorption of morbid pus, virus, &c. We hope the caution will 
have its weight with all to whom the facts are unknown. 
Many valuable lives, within our own remembrance, have been 
lost through recklessness in opening the bodies of cattle with a 
view of ascertaining the cause of their death: the operators, 
some of them, not knowing that it is a dangerous business to 
make post-mortem examinations of such animals as have died 
from diseases of a putrid type, or even handle animal or vege- 
