150 SYNOPSIS OF CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 
with the vaccine. The rapid appearance of red spots, fever, 
erysipelas, suppurative boils, and, in one case, death of a 
vaccinated child, may be explained as due to septicaemia. 
We can understand that in Italy, during the month of April, 
at the end of seven days decomposition would have com¬ 
menced. It is evidently unsatisfactory to send the entire 
vaccine pustules any considerable distance. 
On Amylaceous Degeneration of the Liver of the Horse , 
by Dr. Prana. —The author made a microscopical study of 
the liver of a horse which died from rupture of that organ. 
The portion examined, having been preserved in very good 
alcohol, exhibited no signs of putrefaction, but was extremely 
friable, giving way readily under pressure of the finger. The 
general coloration was paler than that normal to liver sub¬ 
stance which has been for a long time in alcohol. On one of 
its surfaces the piece of liver seemed formed of a broken- 
down substance, with its granules united by delicate threads. 
Sections from this part treated with glycerin showed the 
hepatic cells, not polygonal, as normally, but with hollowed 
margins and prolongations, their protoplasm granular,and 
sometimes infiltrated with fat, the nuclei distinct, and gene¬ 
rally one to each cellule. In contact with these altered cells 
were observed nodulated masses, colourless, highly refractive, 
and about thirty micro-millimetres in diameter, as well as 
cylindrical bodies formed of a similar substance, nodulated on 
their surfaces, and often seeming as though made up of juxta¬ 
posed portions. 
It was suspected that these cylinders were only de¬ 
generated capillaries. To assure himself of this, the author 
made sections of those parts where the liver did not seem 
broken up. These sections exhibited, from several points of 
view, the capillary network made up of cylinders similar to 
those already described. All the vessels had thickened walls. 
Methylaniline and tincture of iodine, by their reactions, 
proved accurately that the nodulated masses and the cylin¬ 
ders had undergone amylaceous degeneration. This is 
important from a histological and pathological point of 
view, for it shows that amyloid degeneration originates 
from the constituents of the vessels, the liver cells being 
only deformed, whilst it is said that this disease in man 
generally originates in the hepatic cells. It may be that 
degeneration of the vessels can cause spontaneous rupture 
of the liver, but this single case hardly suffices to prove that 
such is the case ( Giornale de Anatomia Fisiologia e Pato- 
logia di Animate , Pisa, 1879). 
How Displacement of the Third Phalanx is produced in 
