ORGANIC LESION OF THE PYLORUS IN THE HORSE. 449 
day, appetite would return, and she would eat abundantly 
in the course of the night, which in the morning would be 
followed by fresh vomiting. 
This state of things, for which all remedy was hopeless, 
continued longer than we had, from the excessive weakness 
of the horse, reckoned on. At last, however, on the 19th 
January, the owner came to announce to us that, for the 
last two days, his mare had refused her food, and, on which 
account, he had left her in the stable, where she had stood 
and vomited almost incessantly. “ Indeed,” added he, “ I 
may expect to find her dead on my return.” His appre¬ 
hensions were realized ; and the next evening we w T ent to 
the stable, the manger of which was really inundated with 
vomited matters; indeed we do not exaggerate when we say 
she had ejected upwards of ten quarts («quinze litres .) We 
proceeded at once to the— 
Autopsy : fifteen hours after death. The stomach was 
found considerably larger than usual, notwithstanding it 
was but moderately filled by the aliment within it, and, in 
this condition, was remarkable for the flaccidity of its parietes. 
The sort of circular contraction, which, in the natural state, 
marks internally the separation of the two sacs of the viscus, 
had entirely disappeared. When section is made of the 
oesophagus, at about two diameters from its insertion, and 
its inside is drawn out, what strikes attention is the ex¬ 
traordinary relaxation of the two circular bundles of fleshy 
fibres which, under the name of oesophagean cravats, normally 
constringe the termination of this tube in the stomach. So 
manifest is this relaxation that, if only precaution be taken 
to close the pylorus by grasping the duodenum, the liquid 
contained within the stomach will, by its own weight, readily 
flow out at the other end. The other fasciculi of fibres 
which, in contrary directions, surround the stomach, have 
experienced a divarication (ecartement ), and an elongation 
showing the extreme degree their extension can be carried to. 
The interior of the stomach also commanded our attention. 
The oesophagus, instead of terminating in a projecture (saillie), 
communicates with the stomachic cavity by a gaping infun- 
dibuliform aperture ; and its mucous lining is thrown around 
the infundibulum into a succession of loose longitudinal 
plaits. These plaits become continuous for the most part 
with others of the same kind lining the left sac of the 
stomach, the lining of the right being greyish and attenuated. 
The above changes, which might well account for the 
vomiting, are not those of the greatest importance to us. At 
the pylorus, and within the incipient portion of the small 
