A PERI NEPHRITIC ABSCESS. 
117 
treatment, etc., up to the day and hour to Dr. Robertson, who, 
after a general examination, made rectal exploration, prompted 
by suspicion of tumor in the neighborhood of the kidney, which 
he was finally able to outline on the left side. My arms not be¬ 
ing as long as Dr. Robertson’s, I could not outline as much of 
the tumor, but could touch the most posterior point of it. The 
horse was then walked out into the yard, and the two sides com¬ 
pared, which appeared symmetrical, so far as the eye could ap¬ 
preciate. On being led back into the stable and placed in his 
stall, the horse urinated, and the expulsion of the urine was ac¬ 
companied and followed by the passage of about forty-eight 
inches of clotted blood, moulded in perfect cords as before, half 
inch in diameter, which, together with the bloody urine, was 
caught in a stable pail. Into this peculiar mass my consultant, 
a teacher and practitioner for a quarter of a century, gazed long 
and earnestly, occasionally manipulating those long tough 
clots, and wondered how the horse lived, and looked so well. 
To me, after eleven years of uninterrupted practice, this sight, 
which I had repeatedly witnessed for several days, was strange ; 
to Prof. Robertson, with more than twice as many years of 
practice and his quarter of a century’s connection with the vet¬ 
erinary school, it was equally strange and puzzling. He con¬ 
firmed the gravity of my prognosis, by saying, “ Ellis, this horse 
will die of this thing before long, and then we will know some¬ 
thing about it.” He then suggested that I send the horse 
down to the college, which I finally induced the owner to do on 
the 17th, being Friday. 
On Monday, the 20th, I was called up on the telephone, from 
the college office, and told that Dr. Coates desired to know 
whether I would permit an operation to be performed upon the 
horse, which had been entered there as my patient, and which 
he stated was in a critical condition ; colicy pains having set in 
that day, and he would probably die. It was explained further, 
that the operation in view was largely experimental, and done 
as a last resort; it having been suggested by H. Taylor Cronk, 
M. D., an instructor in both the medical and veterinary schools 
