STUD BOOK. 113 



atic exercise, which will inure the circulatory vessels to 

 prompt and efficient action when they are suddenly called 

 upon to exert themselves. This is an extreme case, but the 

 cause and the remedy are sufficiently plain. 



Again, the brain has functions of the most important 

 nature to discharge, and more blood flows through it than 

 through any other portion of the frame of equal bulk. In 

 order to prevent this organ from being oppressed by a too 

 great determination of blood to it, the vessels, although 

 * numerous are small, and pursue a very circuitous and wind- 

 ing course. If a horse highly fed, and full of blood, is sud- 

 denly and sharply exercised, the course of the blood is accel- 

 erated in every direction, and to the brain among other 

 parts. The vessels that ramify on its surface, or penetrate its 

 substance, are completely distended and gorged with it; per- 

 haps they are ruptured, and the effused blood presses upon 

 the brain; it presses upon the origins of the nerves, on which 

 sensation and motion depend, and the animal suddenly drops 

 powerless. A prompt and copious abstraction of blood, or, 

 in other words, a diminution of this pressure, can alone save 

 the patient Here is the nature, the cause, and the treat- 

 ment of 



Apoplexy. 



Sometimes this disease assumes a different form. The 

 horse has not been performing more than his ordinary work, 

 or perhaps he may not have been out of the stable. He is 

 found with his head drooping and his vision impaired. He 

 is staggering about. He falls, and lies half-unconscious, or 

 he struggles violently and dangerously. There is the same 

 congestion of blood in the head, the same pressure on the 

 nervous organs, but produced by a different cause. He has 

 been accustomed habitually to overload his stomach, or he 

 was, on the previous day, kept too long without his food, and 

 then he fell ravenously upon it, and ate until his stomach was 

 completely distended and unable to propel forward its ac- 

 cumulated contents. Thus distended, its blood-vessels are 

 compressed, and the circulation through them is impeded, or 

 altogether suspended. The blood is still forced on by the 

 heart, and driven in accumulated quantity to other organs, 

 the brain among the rest; and there congestion takes place, 

 as just described, and the animal becomes sleepy, uncon- 

 scious, and, if he is not speedily relieved, he dies. This, too, 

 is apoplexy; the horseman calls it 



