432 
J. C. MEYER, SR. 
operation refer to Prof. Williams’ Principle and Practice of Vete¬ 
rinary Medicine, or Prof liering’s Operationslehre. 
The more modern apparatus for evacuating the thoracic cavity 
is the aspirator, which has become indispensable in human prac¬ 
tice, yet the opinions of some of the most eminent physicians 
differ in regard to its merits in extracting the serous exudation 
concealed in the cavuum thoracis. Notwithstanding its commend¬ 
able quality of preventing the penetration of atmosphere into the 
chest, different reports in medical literature show that the con¬ 
tents were found purulent in the second aspiration. But I have 
already met with the turbid quality and foetid smell at the first 
operation, while in other cases tapped three to four times, 
whereby the entering of air (more or less) by the old modus oper- 
andi cannot be prevented, the liberated liquid presented no other 
change than a sanguinolent color; consequently, the so much 
dreaded contact of the atmosphere with the incarcerated serum 
is not alone to be blamed for this change, and even if it should 
be found in a state of approaching purulency, the chances for 
recovery are not hopeless. As an example, I will cite the follow¬ 
ing case: I withdrew from a seven year old, tolerably well kept 
horse, about thirty-five pints slightly foetid smelling whitish 
serum ; two days later a purulent foetid smelling discharge from 
the nose took place. Before hydro thorax set in, he received the 
buccal injection mentioned above, and now carbolic acid, 3 ij and 
infus. juniper twice per day. After the gangrene smell subsided 
milk and gin were given him twice per day, for a week or more, 
until his appetite returned. One month’s pasturing was sufficient 
to restore him to health, which was the tenth week after the be¬ 
ginning of his illness. 
The question, whether my operative procedure might not have 
been crowned with better success by using the aspirator invented 
principally for this purpose, I intend to solve [in the future, an¬ 
imated greatly by two interesting and instructive clinical reports, 
one entitled “ The value of thoracenthese in saving life by re¬ 
moving pleuritic exudations” in the Thierarztlichen Jahrbilcher , 
by the late Prof. Falke, third vol., 1880, and the other by Dr. 
