On opening the body, pneumonia of the right lung was discovered. The heart was somewhat large; the cavity of the left side, however, was small, although its walls were upwards of an inch in thickness; the valves were normal, as was also the pericardium. The above-described rolls of pulsating bulgings along the vertebral column, were the dilated and attenuated branches of the transverse arteries of the neck and scapula, as well as of the subscapular artery.

Dr. Hamernjk himself only saw two separate portions of the body, which he describes:

1. On the walls of the chest the two internal mammary arteries were laid open; their calibre was enlarged to the thickness of the little finger; their coats were interspersed at various points, with some few uneven cartilaginous plates, more especially at the upper portion of the vessel.

2. The Portion Of The Aorta

The arch of the aorta, as far as the left subclavian, was only about an inch and a half in length; it measured 1'" in diameter, and its walls exhibited their normal thickness and elasticity. The left subclavian artery was 6½'" in diameter, and was therefore nearly as large as the remaining portion of the arch of the aorta. There were scarcely 1'" of the subclavian artery remaining in the preparation, and the outer wall was invested with some thin plates of bone, as was also the posterior wall of the descending portion of the aorta. About one inch below the point of origin of the subclavian from the aorta, the latter was suddenly contracted circularly, but more especially at the back, by a deep furrow, so that, with its walls included, it did not exceed 5'" in diameter when measured from right to left. The contracted portion scarcely measured 4'" from before backwards, and was therefore somewhat flattened. Above the confined or contracted portion, the aorta was swollen to about the size of a middling-sized hazel-nut, and ossified. At the point of contraction, a transverse wall was observed, having the form of a bi-concave lens, and about 1-1½'" in thickness, which entirely closed the tube. Below the contracted portion, and about 2/// deeper, the aorta began suddenly to dilate, and measured 12½'" in diameter. This dilatation extended over a length of about an inch and a half. The aorta then again assumed its normal diameter; and about 1 inch above the diaphragm it was very slightly dilated. The intercostal arteries of the right side, more especially the second and seventh, were dilated; the former was at least double its normal width. Its walls were thin and collapsed.

The remains of two small shrivelled vessels, with contracted tubes, lay close together on the concave wall of the contracted spot, where each ended in a cul de sac They correcontinue unnoticed for a long time, and do not give rise to disturbances in the system until they have attained a certain limit, the patients continued perfectly well up to a certain period, when the symptoms of heart-disease were either gradually or suddenly manifested sponded to the opening of the Ductus Botalli. Dr. Hamernjk was not able, from the restrictions imposed on his use of the preparations, to discover whether this character depended on original division (duplicity) of the arterial passage, or whether it could be regarded as owing to acquired shrinking or puckering. There was no roughness or cartilagescence to be seen below the obliteration.

Dr. Hamernjk is of opinion that these appearances were due to original formation.

Sixteenth case, in our pathologico-anatomical Collection. Dr. Dlauhy, who conducted the post-mortem examination, has given me the following particulars:

Harzmann Ignaz, aged 27 years, a day laborer, suffered for some years before his death, from slight erysipelas of the face, during one winter and a succeeding autumn. For more than a twelvemonth he had experienced considerable palpitation of the heart at night, after hard work. During the last three months, this had been frequently associated with cough and expectoration of tough mucus, and with oppressed respiration. This condition grew rapidly worse; and for two months before his death, which occurred in the beginning of March, 1843, he had oedema of the feet.

Autopsy

The body was of a robust make; there was oedema, more especially of the lower extremities; the abdomen was much distended and fluctuating.

The sinuses of the dura mater were distended; the pia mater, together with the brain, abounded in blood.

The abdominal cavity contained about 201bs. of clear serum, intermixed with scattered fibrinous flocculi. The liver was not much enlarged; its substance was distinctly separated into a yellow and a dark reddish tissue (nutmeg liver); its peritoneal investment was thickened, and in some spots had a tendinous appearance. The gall-bladder contained tough, dark brown bile. The spleen was dense, of a dark reddish-brown color, and tolerably large. The kidneys large, and very tough. Ramifications of veins, much filled with blood, were observed on the ileum.

Both lungs were, for the most part, attached by cellular adhesions to the costal wall; the cavities of the pleural sacs contained about a pound of serum; both lungs were puffy, and oedematous; in each of the lower lobes there was a spot of the size of a pomegranate, in addition to several smaller ones, of a blackish-red color and fragile, - a haemorrhagic infarctus. The mucous membrane of the trachea and the bronchi was bluish-red, and loosened; and the bronchial ramifications were filled with a thick, yellowish, puriform mucus.

There were about two ounces of clear serum in the pericardium. The heart was more than twice the normal size, and invested with numerous milk-spots; the muscular substance was tough throughout, and of a reddish-brown color. The left ventricle was much dilated, and its wall was about an inch in thickness; and the right ventricle and the left auricle were dilated and hypertrophied. The valves were normal; the Foramen ovale was closed; the Venae cavae, the intercostal veins, the jugular veins, etc, were dilated and swelled.

The Aorta

The preparation consisting of a part of the ascending aorta, the arch, and a portion of the descending aorta, presented the following appearances:

The ascending arch of the aorta (regarded as the vascular trunk designed to supply the head and the upper extremities) was unusually extended downwards; after giving off the arteria innominata, it diminished so much that its diameter did not exceed 5'" at the point where the left subclavian was given off, which formed, as it were, a continuance of it, and was of equal calibre with it. Above the valves its diameter was 11'" From this point it was deflected rapidly, and almost angularly, as a vessel of about ll'" in length, and not more than 3'" in diameter; its lower extremity corresponding to the depression of the obliterated Ductus arteriosus, was contracted and already undergoing obliteration, and was cut off from the descending aorta by a deep furrow.

At this spot, the calibre of the artery scarcely measured one line; the passage, which only admitted a thin probe, was obstructed in the direction of the descending aorta by a small plate of white, opaque deposit. The descending aorta varied from 8 to 9 lines in diameter. - The deposit was very considerable, opaque, and partially ossified, in the ascending aorta; the walls were rigid. The descending portion exhibited only a few plates of an opaque deposit. The arteria innominata was about 5 or 6 lines, the left carotid about 2 inches, and the left subclavian, as we have already remarked, about 5'" in diameter. The ends of the intercostal arteries branching off from the descending aorta, more especially the uppermost ones, were considerably dilated.