ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

~bstrads and !,ttports. THE DISINFECTANT PROPERTIES OF

SULPHUROUS ACID.

DR THOINOT has studied the action of sulphurous acid on some of the common pathogenic microbes, and he divides the latter into the following two groups:

1. The first group comprises the vibrio septique (bacillus of malignant cedema), the bacillus anthracis, and the bacillus of black-quarter. These resist absolutely the action of sulphurous acid, even when the gas is liberated in large quantities and allowed to act for a prolonged period.

2. The second group includes the organisms of tuberculosis, glanders, bovine farcy, typhoid fever, Asiatic cholera, and diphtheria, which can in a general way be killed by suphurous acid. These microbes require variable doses, but 60 grammes of sulphur per cubic metre, in a close chamber and with a 24 hours exposure, is certainly fatal, and this is the strength recom­mended for practical purposes.-Annales de l'Institltt Pasteur, August 1890'

FATAL HEMORRHAGE IN A MARE, CAUSED BY INGESTION OF A NAIL.

A mare, six years old and previously in a good state of health, was suddenly seized with slight colic, which soon passed off. When taken to the stable it lay down, and it died after a few hours, without having manifested any symptoms capable of explaining such a suddenly fatal termination.

At the autopsy, which was made immediately after death, the stomach was found to be four times its normal volume; it was filled with blood clots and a little liquid blood. The small intestine for a length of five or six yards also contained blood mixed with the secretion of the bowel. The large colon and the c<ecum were greatly distended by dried alimentary matters.

The cesophagus presented near the middle of its thoracic part a smalL wound concealed by a blackish infiltration of the surrounding connective tissue. This wound was close to the posterior aorta, which at the same point also presented a solution of continuity.

Death had thus been due to h<emorrhage from the aorta, and the blood which escaped had flowed into the cesophagus, and thence into the stomach and intestine. The cause of this h<emorrhage was found in the middle of some blood clots in the stomach. It was a small nail, about 2~ inches long and bent nearly at a right angle. It is probable that the nail had been swallowed with the food, and, becoming arrested in the cesophagus, had torn the wall of that tube, and set up a small inflammatory focus, which had gained the aorta by contiguity of tissue, and finally produced death from h<emorrhage by ulcerat­ing into the vessel.-Recueil de lI£i:decine VCterinaire.

LEIOMYOMA FROM THE HORSE'S STOMACH.

JUDGING from the very few cases of myomatous tumours from the horse recorded in veterinary literature, it would appear that neoplasmata of that type are of very rare occurrence in the equine species. Dr Lothes has recently described an interesting example, which he removed from the stomach

ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS.

of an aged dissection subject. On the unopened stomach the tumour was visible at the small curvature to the left of the cardia, to which it appeared to be intimately connected. At first sight it looked like a diverticulum of the c:esophagus. It had an ovoid shape, a smooth surface, and the colour and consistence of non-striped muscular tissue. Its longest diameter measured about zt inches, and its shortest less than an inch. Its outer face was covered by peritoneum, and its inner by gastric mucous membrane, and the fibres of the tumour were directly continuous with the muscular fibres which play the part of a sphincter to the cardiac orifice of the stomach. A scraping from the tumour showed long spindle-shaped cells (smooth muscular fibres) of very various dimensions. The cells contained long rod-like nuclei with one or two refractile nucleoli. In sections it was seen that the muscle cells were grouped in bundles, separated by thin strands of connective tissue fibres. The tumour was only slightly vascular. No history of the horse could be obtained, but the c:esophagial orifice was unusually wide (easily admitted two fingers), and it therefore appeared as if the tumour had led to paralysis of the sphincter bands at the cardia. It is suggested that local irritation may have been the main factor in the causation of the new growth.- Berliner Thier­antfiche Wochmschrijt, June 1890.

ACCIDENTAL INOCULATION OF ACTINOMYCOSIS

TO A HORSE.

IN the month of July 1881 a horse in falling inflicted a wound on the front of the near stifle-joint. The wound comprised two cuts parallel to the direction of the muscular fihres and a little more than an inch apart, and between these the muscular fibres were bruised. The horse was taken to the nearest veterinary surgeon, who bled It (!), and it was then placed in a building in which cattle were kept. Camphorated ointment was applied to the wound, but the muscular fibres between the two skin wounds became necrotic, and were removed. The wound thus left corresponded to the lower third of the femur, and penetrated as far as the bone, which, however, was not injured. At the end of 40 days the wound had cicatrised, but a hard subcutaneous enlargement remained behind, causing slight deformity of the leg. With the object of removing this, firing was practised over the tumour, but no sensible diminution in the size of the latter was produced.

Without any further treatment the horse was worked during the winter and spring of 1882, and about the month of August it was observed that the tumour was growing in size. The owner of the horse applied biniodide of mercury ointment, but without the least effect. Towards the end of October last the enlargement had assumed the characters of a large mature abscess, and the horse having been cast the tumour was enucleated. Suspecting that it was sarcomatous, the veterinary surgeon sent the excised tumour to Professor Perroncito, who in making a histological examination discovered in it a considerable number of colonies of the actinomyces. He therefore advised the immediate and complete extirpation of the new growth, combined with scraping of the bone if that was attacked. In November last this was attempted, but as it was then discovered that the bone was extensively diseased, the owner was advised to destroy the horse.-ReZ'lte VCterinaire, September 1890.