REVIEW OF MEDICAL PROGRESS. 
327 
I recommended to have her turned into a small enclosure, 
that she might take whatever exercise she saw fit. This, 
however, was not attended to. She was taken by the halter 
a short time morning and evening. In the course of a week 
she commenced knuckling at the fetlocks and appeared un¬ 
able to straighten the limbs. In a few days the rectus fem- 
oris and vasti muscles had atrophied to such an extent that 
they felt like a tendon as large as a finger, and the mare was 
unable to stand. 
The case was considered hopeless and the animal was de¬ 
stroyed. 
REVIEW OF MEDICAL PROGRESS. 
ANATOMY—COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF THE SIGMOID VALVES 
OF THE HEART. 
By Gilbert and Rogers. 
The sigmoid valves of the heart of man are inserted upon 
a fibrous ring. But this is not the case with the animal series, 
where the insertion takes place upon the free border of, the 
muscular tables, which are absent in man. The researches 
made by the authors upon a great number of animals (mam¬ 
malia and birds) have given them ample opportunities to ob¬ 
serve the constant presence of these muscular tables. This 
conformation and disposition of parts may, however, vary in 
different species. Birds have three complete aortic rings resting 
upon each other by their extremities. In the mammalia, 
there is a space corresponding to the mitral valve, where the 
muscular fibres are lacking. 
The presence of these tables is the cause of the conforma¬ 
tion of the arterial orifices of the heart, with modifications 
varying with their number and their dimensions. The ab¬ 
sence of the muscular tables in man must be considered as an 
inferiority, by exposing the valves to laceration and insuffi¬ 
ciency of action .—Revue des Sciences Med. 
