23

“SECTIO CADAVERIS.

“Considerable emaciation; and on removing the integument the scalpel opened into an abscess, containing an ounce or two of pus, situated beneath the mamma of the left side. The dura mater was firmly attached to the skull at the vertex, where the bone was remarkably thin, and indented by the glandulæ Pacchioni, and the ordinary opake deposit which surrounds them; on raising the dura mater several small opacities were observable on the arachnoid, and a very considerable quantity of serous fluid was effused under the arachnoid, raising it into bladders, as well as filling up the hollow between the convolutions.

“The whole brain was soft and watery, and many vessels showed themselves where horizontal sections were made. In the ventricles about half an ounce of fluid was collected. The choroid plexus was quite exsanguine.

“Slight adhesions of the pleura pulmonalis and pleura costalis were found, but not sufficient to prevent the lungs from collapsing pretty completely when the air was admitted into the chest. The upper lobe of each lung was in an unhealthy state, looking puckered and containing one or two masses of earthy matter, besides several small incipient tubercles; the greater part of the lungs, however, was in a very healthy condition. Heart small, but healthy. In the abdomen slight old adhesions had taken place in various parts, but were composed of the finest transparent cellular tissue; even the omentum, which was glued by them to various parts both of the intestines and the parietes, had lost none of its natural delicacy and transparency. The intestines were healthy, but stained with bile; the mucous membrane healthy; the liver healthy, and the gall-bladder full of bile; the pancreas healthy, and the spleen also, but just between the pancreas and the spleen a few absorbent glands were enlarged. The glands of the mesentery were also slightly enlarged. The only marked disease was in the renal capsules, both of which were enlarged, lobulated, and the seat of morbid deposits apparently of a scrofulous character; they were at least four times their natural thickness,

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