POINTED METALLIC BODIES SWALLOWED WITH POOD. 583 
that plaster alone will attenuate the smell in a very slight 
degree, but can do nothing more! Coal-tar alone destroys 
the smell; it is therefore the coal-tar which is the real disin¬ 
fecting agent. The oil of bituminous schistus produces the 
same effect as coal-tar, but its odour is more acrid and 
disagreeable. Vegetable tar produces the same effect as 
coal-tar, and its smell is less disagreeable; it might there¬ 
fore be usefully substituted. The plaster is only useful as a 
convenient and highly absorbent vehicle. M. Paulet thinks 
it useful because, being a sulphate of lime, it fixes the car¬ 
bonate of ammonia by a double decomposition. 5 ’ 
For our parts we should prefer Mr. M^ougalVs dis¬ 
infecting powder, which we have previously noticed, and which 
contains sulphurous and carbolic acids united to magnesia and 
lime. The sulphurous acid will decompose the fetid binary 
compounds of hydrogen, while the carbolic acid, a substance 
obtained from coal-tar, and allied to the alcohols in its chemical 
deportment, prevents putrescence. 
POINTED METALLIC BODIES SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN 
SWALLOWED WITH THEIR EOOD BY RUMINANTS. 
The following list of substances is given by Mr. J. J. 
Murray, M.R.C.S. Eng., in a late number of the Medical 
Times and Gazette . 
“ In the Recueil de Medecine Veterinaire for June last, M. 
Boizy relates six cases in which pins or needles, which had 
been swallowed by cattle with their food, penetrated the peri¬ 
cardium or the walls of the heart, and so caused death. That 
such cases are most frequent among ruminants, M. Boizy 
ascribes to the manner in which these animals swallow their 
food almost unmasticated, and to the fact, that they are 
generally tended by women, from whose dresses the pins and 
needles probably proceed. 
“ Frei found a knitting-needle penetrating the pericardium 
of a cow, to the extent of half an inch.—Canstatt’s Jahresbericht 
iiber die Leistungen in der Thierheillcunde , 1851, p. 40. 
“ Fischer found a nail transfixing the reticulum and heart 
of a cow, which had died after a short illness.— Ibid. p. 40 
“ A piece of iron wire, two inches long, was found in lymph 
connecting the reticulum, pericardium, and heart in a cow, 
which had, for some period, suffered from constant cough, but 
had eaten heartily till the day before death.— Archiv fur 
Thierheilkunde , von der Gesselschaft ScJiweizericher Thierdrzie. 
Neue Folge, 8 Band, p. 25. 
