NEEDLES AND FISH-HOOKS IN THE INTESTINES. 19 
Mr. Boulton was desirous that the morbid parts should be 
laid before the members of the Veterinary Medical Asso¬ 
ciation. This was done, and the novelty of the case, together 
with the barbarity connected with it, awakened a spirited 
discussion among the members present, many of whom were 
able to give the meeting much information respecting the 
manufacture of needles and Jish-hooJcs, and the way the latter 
are usually packed before leaving the factory where they are 
made. This information tended greatly to confirm the idea 
which prevailed, that the imperfectly made needles and the 
finished fish-hooks were maliciously given to the mare by 
some evil-disposed person. 
If it had not occurred that one of these needles had pene¬ 
trated the skin, and was discovered by the owner in the way 
it was, the animal might have been allowed to live until 
death from exhaustion put an end to her sufferings. To be 
sure, the symptoms were diagnostic of such pain as the 
agents we have alluded to would produce; but neither Mr. 
Boulton nor any other veterinary surgeon would or could 
have supposed that they depended upon such a cause. It 
was therefore fortunate for the poor mare that the needle 
protruded through the skin, as it enabled Mr. Boulton to 
diagnose his case, which having done, he judiciously advised 
that she be destroyed. The poor animal, being bereft of 
speech, could not give utterance to her agonies or state the 
cause of them, even if she had known them, nor were the 
symptoms easy to be interpreted by her attendants. 
It would be highly gratifying if we could divest the mind 
of the almost certainty of the above agents having been given 
by some one. We know that domestic animals are prone 
under some circumstances to pick up and swallow all sorts 
of things, such as pieces of wire, tin, iron, rags, stones, 
wood, &c. Cows especially will do this. Many instances have 
been met with of pins and pieces of wire in the heart and 
pericardium, which were believed to have worked their way 
from the stomach—the second, most likely—into those organs. 
Even the human being is not exempt from these abnormal 
propensities, needles and pins having been swallowed in 
large quantities, of which many well-authenticated cases are 
on record. Dr. Elliotson, in his work on the ^ Practice of 
Medicine,^ p. 1069, says—I saw a man who had sw al¬ 
lowed nineteen clasped knives. He w^as not believed for some 
time, but he assured me that he had swallowed them, and 
to convince me he took out of his pocket one of the same 
size as those he had swallow^ed, and put it down his throat. 
At last he died in the most horrid torments, the knives 
