731 
CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
At an ordinary meeting of the above Society, held at No. 10, Red 
Lion Square, W.C., on Thursday, August 5th, in the absence of the 
President, Mr. F. W. Wragg took the chair. 
Mr. Samson exhibited a specimen of diseased heart, taken from a very 
fine cow that had always been remarkably healthy. She was taken ill on the 
22nd July last with a common shivering fit. As the bowels did notact, 
he administered a saline draught with benefit. On the 23rd was sent 
for again ; found the temperature 103|°; pulse extraordinary quick, and 
very weak. On auscultation, could hear a thumping noise on the right 
side, but on the left could scarcely hear the heart beat at all. It 
appeared to him to be a case of severe heart disease, and he gave very 
little hopes of the animal’s recovery, but the owner wishing it to be 
treated he ordered small doses of aconite, with gruel and beer. The 
animal became worse, lost her supply of milk, and her appetite failed. 
She died on the 2nd August. The temperature was on that day 105|°. 
He made a post-mortem and slit up the pericardium to let out the fluid, 
of which there was as much as from twelve to fourteen quarts (sample 
shown), exceedingly offensive and thick. All the other organs of the 
body appeared healthy. The diseased heart was affected from its apex 
to its base, and all round one side. Four days before the animal’s death 
he heard the heart beating in the fluid. There was no swelling under 
the jaw. 
Mr. Gerrard had known a similar case arising from a pin penetratin g 
the heart. 
Mr. Steel remarked that the disease was usually preceded by attacks of 
indigestion. The lesions appeared to have existed some time. 
The Chairman thought it must have been a case of pericarditis. 
Mr. Shaw observed that it was no uncommon thing to find a diseased 
heart in a bullock; he frequently saw it. Quite recently a case came 
under his notice which was condemned as one of pleuro-pneumonia ; 
there was an immense quantity of water in the pericardium. He had 
never seen a case like the present, and should think the disease must 
have been present months before death. Many similar cases arose from 
a nail, piece of wire, or pin passing into the heart, and such was not 
discovered until after the animal was killed ; numbers of beasts went 
to market in such condition. 
Mr. Steel said, as a rule, upon making a post-mortem examination there 
was not such a condition of the pericardium and heart’s surface and its 
general structure as found in this case. He generally found the fluid 
in the pericardiac sac of a milky or yellowish-white colour, sometimes 
reddish (but that was the exception), and he was inclined to believe it 
was seldom, if ever, found except with some communication with the 
heart cavity before death. 
With regard to the nature of the deposit on the heart, in ordinary 
cases it had not that leathery characteristic seen here; more often it ap¬ 
pears as a thick, tough membrane. The deposit is of a brighter colour. In 
ordinary cases it undergoes calcareous change, and is somewhat gritty, 
and its feeling to the knife is different to that of the specimen exhibited, 
which he saw required careful examination, and might probably prove 
to be a case of idiopathic carditis in the cow, and, if so, would be 
a valuable addition to their literature on the subject. In reply to 
Mr. Gerrard, he said that he had mostly found the secretions in all 
