artery, owing to its intimate connection with the substance of the tumor, as well as several small arteries which passed into the growth. The bands of connectivetissue binding the tumor to the trachea and oesophagus were broken down by the handle of a scalpel, and the tumor removed entire. The cavity was then thoroughly cleansed with carbolic lotion, and the muscular tissue brought together by means of deep-seated sutures, seven in number. The skin was approximated by means of interrupted sutures, five in number, after which the parts were covered by cloths saturated in carbolic acid solution, and laxative food was ordered. Time of operation,. one hour and forty-five minutes.*

RESULTS.-Rigors supervened ten hours after operation, followed by an increased temperature; pulse rose to 60, full and strong; respiration increased in frequency, and labored; 24 to the minute. Temperature, 104°. Symptoms were subdued with stimulants, followed by febrifuge drenches. Twenty-four hours after, pulse slightly increased in frequency; respiration normal; temperature, 101 3-5; lips of the wound slightly thickened, oedematous; animal looking and feeling well; appetite good.. Forty-eight hours after, entire pectoral region was the seat of general oedematous. swelling, but no constitutional disturbance. Seventy-two hours after, swelling had increased in volume, and was more diffuse, dropping down into the axillary reigion; lips of wound thickened and everted, sutures giving way, and a s'ight discharge of creamy looking pus. Treatment, carbolic lotion applied to the part. Ninetysix hours after, swelling further increased, extending down to the knee; superficial sutures ruptured, lips of wound gaping, profuse discharge of a yel'owish pus, slightly fœtid in odor. Treatment continued. Fifth day, discharge very profuse of a yellowish green co'or and very fœtid, swelling in the arm and axillary regions gradually abating, lips of the wound widely gaping and granulating. Treatment, 2 per cent. solution of chloride of zinc to be used as a spray twice a day. This treatment was continued until the twentieth day, during which time the swelling gradually abated, and the cavity filled up with granular material, when the animal was discharged, with parts a'most restored to their normal condition. Recovery complete.

CASE II-Black mare, ten years old, fourteen and a half hands high. HISTORY.—Four weeks previously owner noticed a small nodular growth, which had gradually increased in size up to the present time. There had never been tenderness or heat in the part, and the animal had suffered no inconvenience. The growth was situated in the inferior cervical region, a little to the left of the median line over the region of the transverse process of the fifth cervical vertebra, and was deeply imbedded in the mastoido-humeralis muscle, and seemed very much like hypertrophy. It was firm to the touch, and adherent to the muscular tissue, but not to the cuticle. Longitudinal diameter, 41⁄2 inches; transverse, 6 inches. TREATMENT.-Attempts were at first made to discuss the growth by counter irritation and a seton, which proving ineffectual, it was decided to extirpate.

OPERATION.-The animal being cast and properly secured, an incision was made through the integument, which was then dissected back and the tumor sliced off

*Weight of tumor 51⁄2 pounds. Microscopical report not rendered.

from its base, leaving only soft normal tissue beneath. The lips of the wound were then drawn together and retained in position by means of quill sutures. Carbolized dressings were then applied. The wound healed kindly, with very little discharge. Time of operation, 45 minutes; weight of tumor, 2 lbs.; character, fibroma. Animal discharged in five weeks, fit for work.

CASE III.-Buckskin gelding, ten years old, sixteen hands high.

HISTORY.-First noticed tumor three weeks prior to admission in the hospital; growth was steady from that time. Tumor painful on pressure, oval in shape, soft and movable. Locality, about four inches above the scapulo-humeral articulation, on the right side and over the seat of the mastoido-humeralis and anterior spinatus muscles.

OPERATION.-Incision was made in the median line, cellular tissue was then broken down with the handle of the scalpel, and the tumor enucleated. It was found to be lodged in the cellular tissue principally, and but slightly attached to the ante spinatus muscle. The parts were cleansed with carbolized dressing, the lips of the wound were brought together with the quill suture, and carbolized dressings applied. Wound healed kindly, and the animal pronounced fit for work in two weeks. Time of operation, thirty minutes; character of the tumor, fatty fibroma; weight was 11⁄2 pounds.

CASE IV.-Sorrel gelding, seven years old, fifteen-three hands high, of a nervous temperament.

HISTORY.-The animal was castrated two years previous. This operation was performed with the animal in a standing position; wound healed kindly. Seven months afterwards a thickening was noticed on the left side of the scrotum in the inferior portion, about one inch above the median raphæ. This thickening gradually became greater, and on manipulation, the end of the spermatic cord could be felt indurated and adherent. A peculiar feature in this history was, that after exercise, the entire scrotum would swell as would also the left hind leg from the hip to the hock. The swelling was soft, would pit on pressure, and would last from ten to twenty-four hours, when it would disappear. Three months previous to admission, an incision was made through the scrotum, and that part of the spermatic cord which was adherent thereto was dissected off.

DIAGNOSIS.-Fatty fibroma in the testicular envelopes. Treatment, excision. OPERATION.-Animal was cast and secured properly, after which he was placed on his back with hind legs drawn forward. An elliptical incision was then made over the seat of the growth and the tumor dissected out. The edges of the wound were then brought together by means of interrupted sutures, and the parts were dressed with strong solution of carbolic acid in order to check hemorrhage, and also for its antiseptic effect. The sheath placed in a sling, and animal ordered to be kept quiet with light diet. Animal was removed two days after operation.

Character of tumor: Fatty fibroma, weight twenty ounces; time of operation, forty minutes.

PROGRESS OF VETERINARY SCIENCE.

"WOOL-SORTER'S DISEASES."-Quite recently five cases of this disease have occurred in the vicinity of Bradford, England, four of which have proved fatal. All the cases were men employed in sorting what is known as "Van Mohair." Malignant pustule formed in three cases. The physician under whose care one of these cases fell, and which was not attended with pustule, found bacillus anthraces in the blood after death, and certified the case as one of splenic fever. Previous examinations of the blood in these cases have shown this disease to be anthrax.-London Lancet.

THE HOG PLAGUE.-[Prominent Symptom taken from Agricultural Report, 1878.]—The hog plague is a disease sui generis, peculiar to swine, and owes its infectious character to the presence of a microscopic germ, the bacillus suis, which is found in all the fluids of the diseased animal. A period of incubation is required for its development, lasting from three to seven days.

The diagnosis is very easy. As symptoms of special diagnostic value, scarcely ever absent in any case, may be mentioned the following: Drooping of the ears and head; cough; dull look of the eyes; staring coat of hair; want of appetite; vitiated appetite for excrements; rapid emaciation; great debility; weak, sometimes staggering gait; tendency to seclusion; disposition to hide the snout or the whole head in the bedding; offensive smell and peculiar odor of the excrements, no matter whether constipation or diarrhoea exists.

The disease is extremely fatal, the younger the herd the worse. Few hogs recover from it, and those that do are comparatively worthless for the purposes of fattening and the slaughter house.

The morbid changes disclosed by a post mortem examination show hepatization of of the lungs to a greater or less extent; blood, serum and exudation in the pulmonal tissue; lymphatic and mesenteric glands enlarged; trachea and bronchial tubes full of frothy mucus; heart flabby and dilated in some cases, but in most, congested: congestion also of the liver, spleen, and kidneys; large and small intestines filled with humors of every size and shape, in many cases ulcerated; extensive adhesions of the bowels, agglutinations; quantitative and qualitative changes in the blood and other fluids, bacelle and bacellus germs everywhere.

A NEW ANTHELMINTIC.—The ocinum basilicum, a plant known in Buenos Ayres under the name "albochaca," has an action of such a nature that worms in every stage of development rapidly leave their location after the juice reaches them. Its use is so much the more to be recommended, since in the event no worms are present, no injurious effects result from the plant, but a laxative and disinfectant action is the only result. Fifty grammes of the juice is given, followed in two hours by a dose of castor oil. A free discharge of the worms may be expected.

The above observations of Dr. Lemos and the results obtained are very encouraging, and invite further investigation, the more since the number of anthelmintics is limited, and their action often unsatisfactory.-Med. Neuigk., No. 34, 1879.

ON THE CONTRACTILITY OF THE CAPILLARY BLOOD VESSELS.-Five years ago M. Rouget presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences his observations on capillary contractility. He had found that the capillary blood vessels in the tails of certain tadpoles possessed contractile powers. This property they owed to the presence of ramified cells disposed in networks, and constituting a part of their walls. Recent observations on the blood vessels of the capsulo-pupillary membrane of newly born or fœtal mammals have confirmed Dr. Rouget's previous statements. He was able to observe the same phenomena here, as in the tails of various batrachian larvæ.

The endothelial tube, composed of flat nucleated cells, which ordinarily constitutesthe walls of capillaries, was surrounded by a network of ramifying cells, and this latter imparted to these vessels the contractile quality.

The author also calls attention to the fact, that without the power of contraction, the capillaries could not, after death, empty themselves of their contents.-Annales de Medecine Veterinaire, Jan., 1880. E. C. W.

PRODUCTION OF Sex at Will.—Mr. Fiquet, a cattle-breeder of Texas, claims to have discovered a way by which either sex can be produced at will. His theory is, that when the female at time of coition is comparatively cold, and the male very passionate, a female will be the result; a reversal of the conditions will produce a male. Mr. Fiquet secures the proper conditions by feeding the bull, for example, on rich food previous to the coition; the cows at the same time being kept on low diet, and submitted to the gallantry of a castrated bull, until the excess of their passion has worked itself off. In all the experiments, numbering fifteen or twenty, so far tried he has been successful in predicting the sex.-Boston Med. and Surg. Journal.

DETERMINATIONS OF SEX IN UTERO.—It is generally admitted that all females in the animal kingdom enjoy sexual intercourse just subsequent to menstruation to a greater degree, and that the pleasurableness of the act is diminished in proportion to its removal from the period. Now, if this be true, it is not unlikely that the mother should transmit to her offspring her sexual peculiarities, and that, too, in proportion as her nervous forces are drawn upon in the sexual act; therefore the further the act is removed from the menstrual period the more males will be born, and as the impression on the mother's mind is diminished so are the chances in the production of a female lessened.

I am of the impression that in dairy districts the observance of the above law enables stock raisers to produce from eighty-five to ninety per cent. of a desired sex. In breeding the fox-hound, for which animal my love amounts almost to weakness, I have observed that the above law is the rule, and, to any one who is curious enough to investigate, he will find the following facts to be true, viz.: That if a male be born as an exception to the above rule or law, it will partake more of the peculiarities of its mother than that male which was conceived in obedience to the law. He is more likely to partake of the same color, his voice will be similar, and about eighty per cent. of this class of males will be provided with imperfectly developed mammæ, and that conical protuberance commonly called nipple. It will be found that the female born as an exception to the rule will partake of the peculiarities of the sire.

There are two cases in nature in which the off-spring invariably partake of the peculiarities of the sire. I refer to the mule and hinny; but, believing as I do, I am convinced that they would be modified if particular attention were paid to the natural law.-Medical Record, June 12, 1880.

SHEEP ROT. For some time a great mortality has prevailed among sheep, and the destruction reported in something appalling. The malady is popularly known by a very old Saxon name, "rot," and is in reality due to the presence in the liver and hepatic canals of numbers of the Distoma hepaticum, a trematode entozoon, as well as the Distoma lanceolatum, also a member of the same order. These entozoa, from their resemblance to the fish called "flukes," have received the same name, and have particular predilection for the bilaiary apparatus, whose function they more or less destroy, and thus lead to the slow death of the sheep or other animals they may infest. After wet seasons, animals which have been pastured on tainted land are certain to suffer, from their having ingested with the herbage the ova of the Distoma. Pastures are tained by "fluke" infested sheep, which pass the mature worms or their ova with the fæces, and these lodge on or are washed into the ground. The worms, of course, die, and the ova within them are liberated; and these together with the free ova, appear to have not only a strong vital resistance to meteorological alternations, but also the good fortune to find a ready and acceptable intermediary host in the Limnæus minutes, a little mud-snail common everywhere, and particularly on wet land. This snail becomes possessed of a number of ova in its interior, and during damp weather it crawls from its breeding place in the ground up the stalks of grass and herbage, and is swallowed by the sheep or other herbivorous animal when they are grazing. Received at first into the stomach, the ova undergo partial development, and then find their way into the biliary canals. If their number is considerable, when they have attained their full growth they dilate and obstruct these canals, the walls of which become considerably thickened. During their development the secretion of bile becomes gradually diminished, and that fluid is viscid, like mucus, and altered in color; at the same time the parenchyma of the liver becomes atrophied from the compression the "flukes" exercise upon it, and it may even become disorganized. Hence results icterus, disturbance in nutrition, anæmia, dropsy, and a general cachectic condition.

Sheep are not the only victims which suffer from the Distoma, for during the present mortality, hares, rabbits, deer, and horses are said to have become infested, and died. The Distoma hepaticum has long been known to exist in the horse and ass, when they were allowed to pasture on unclean land during wet seasons.

Salt appears to be an excellent and well-know prophylactic agent, and even a curative one when the disease has not made much progress. This beneficial action of sodium chloride has been known almost from time immemorial, and the freedom from "rot" of sheep which have been pastured on salt marshes has been also recognized for centuries.

The flesh of sheep which have been affected with this verminous disease cannot be said to be positively dangerous as food, though it must be greatly reduced in nutritive properties, as well as in quality. The human being may receive and harbor the Distoma, a fact worthy of remembrance. The present mortality is likely to render sheep scarce and expensive in this country for some time, and still further darken the prospects of our agriculturists.-London Lancet.