150 
EXTRANEOUS SUBSTANCES IN THE RECTUM. 
For various reasons—and of these not the least important 
are jurisprudential ones—it would be interesting to know the 
length of time the substances in question had been present in 
the intestinal canal. At the commencement of the mare’s 
illness she had been eight days in her present owner’s posses¬ 
sion, and he very positively assured me that she could not 
possibly have obtained them during that period. The tinned 
tack and brass wire were clean and bright, but some of the 
pieces of iron were much corroded. As, however, it cannot 
be proved that the corrosion took place in the digestive tube, 
their appearance affords no clue to the length of time they 
had been there. The evidence, therefore, is by no means 
incompatible with the probability that they were present, and 
had been accumulating in the alimentary canal, some time 
antecedent to the 6th of April. And if so, how long? 
That the intense irritation they excited was the cause of 
the mare’s illness, and the attendant lameness and paralysis, I 
see no reason to doubt. The large intestines being rendered 
extremely sensitive, would of course be further irritated by 
motion, and hence "would arise in some measure lameness or 
abnormal gait. The apparent paralysis might be real or not. 
If the latter, the mare’s obstinate refusal to rise would proceed 
from fear of the acute pain which the attempt to do so would 
produce ; but if the former, which I believe it was, it must be 
attributed to reflex nervous influence. 
[We hardly like to hazard an opinion on this strange case 
communicated by Mr. Lewis, as we have not seen any of the 
“ extraneous substances.” But they appear to us to have 
been such as frequently are found accumulated in the larger 
intestines of horses affected with bulimia ; and which becoming 
dislodged from the sacculi formed by them, had been passed 
onwards for expulsion, (since it is not uncommon for large 
masses to be thus voided). Further, that the suspected pebble¬ 
stones were really small calculous concretions, formed bv the 
phosphates surrounding metallic and other bodies, similar to 
those described bv Mr. Lewis, so as to render them less 
injurious. It is astonishing what strange matters, and how 
large a quantity of them, a voracious feeder will sometimes 
swallow. 
Again and again have we after death taken from the caecum 
just such substances as those stated by him to have been re¬ 
moved from the rectum.] 
