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boys, neighbors, and the quack of the village, who had been pull¬ 
ing on the hind legs, which showed themselves in a posterior pres¬ 
entation, lumbo-sacral position. The foetus was yet alive, the dis- 
tocia being due to abdominal dropsy. A cut with the bistouri 
gave exit to about 25 liters of fluid. The delivery followed easily. 
The post mortem of the foetus showed the following lesions: 
The liver was very large, weighing 2 kilograms 500 grams (4^- 
lbs.); the gall bladder was empty, the cystic canal obliterated, 
the choledon canal largely dilated. The liver was rosy, firm, 
dense, and very resisting; on section, the blood vessels were con¬ 
siderably dilated. So was the vena cava and the portal vein, 
which measured about 7 centimeters in diameter. 
In the thorax, the lungs were healthy, the pleura dropsical, 
the pericardium contained a little serosity, all the afferent veins 
were very large, the heart was enormous, weighing 800 grams, 
and its walls were milch thickened. 
The arterial openings and their sigmoid valves were normal, 
but the three lobes of the tricuspid presented on their borders a 
large number of small vegetation, reddish, easily torn and of 
recent formation. Some conditions, more marked, on the mitral 
valves. All other organs were normal. 
In the left ventricle, fleshy columns, eight to ten in number 
and of the size of a linger, were inserted by their extremities, 
dividing, ramifying and anastomosing together so as to form a 
fleshy mesh, tilling up the entire cavity of the ventricle. 
This observation is interesting: 1st, as being one of the foetal 
distocia by increase in size of the abdomen. 2d, It is one of the 
first where the true cause of the abdominal dropsy has been 
traced. 3d, It is a very rare example of valvular endocartitis in 
a foetus (no other being known to me in veterinary obstetrics). 
4th, Finally, the hypertrophic development of those fleshy columns 
have not, as far as known, been reported in veterinary or human 
medicine .—Archives Vetermaires. 
