PARTURITION. 
259 
The acridity of this volatile principle can be much modified 
by cultivation. Ail (he plants abound in mucilage, and the 
roots of some in saccharine principles. Many of them are 
largely cultivated as food for animals, as the turnip, cabbage, 
&c. ; and others, as the wallflower, stocks, &c., for the 
fragrance and beauty they impart to our flower-gardens. 
“ Most kinds contain sulphur and nitrogen, and give out in 
decaying a smell resembling animal matter.” 
(To be continued .) 
ON PARTURITION. 
By C. Dickens, M.R.C.V.S., Kimbolton. 
If any excuse be required for again referring to this 
important division of our science, it having recently 
occupied so great a space in your Journal, it must be the 
return of that season when doubtless many of your provin¬ 
cial readers will be summoned to attend such cases as those 
reported and so freely commented on by your northern 
contributors. 
We know that the most distinguished professors of human 
obstetrics, as well as ourselves, occasionally meet with novel 
and perplexing cases; but with us the sad drawback exists of 
seldom being consulted until all the men of any notoriety in 
the neighbourhood have exhausted their skill, and arrived at 
the conclusion that no man in England can accomplish that 
which they have failed in doing. Hence the great necessity 
that those who profess to render assistance on these occasions 
should not only possess anatomical and physiological know¬ 
ledge of the organs of generation, but also have had a 
practical training in cases of difficult labour. 
After some years of practice had expired, I was egotistic 
enough to think that 1 had witnessed every form of false 
presentation in the mare, until the following case occurred, 
which, being somewhat dissimilar to any of those already 
referred to, I forward for your insertion in the Veterinarian . 
February 11th, 1861.—A client, residing ten miles distant, 
required my immediate assistance to a very valuable mare in 
foal to the Duke of Bedford’s horse “ Hesperus,” she being 
within a month of her time. I was told that she had been 
“ paining” about four hours, and that, seeing something was 
