XL— RADIAL PARALYSIS IN THE HORSE. 



To-day I intend to speak of the cases of radial paralysis we have 

 treated during the course of the present session, and to show you that 

 this paralysis assumes various clinical appearances which it is important 

 you should recognise if you wish to avoid awkward mistakes. 



Our last patient affected with radial paral3'sis is still in the 

 clinique. It is a nine-year-old Percheron horse, with only one blemish, 

 viz. a moderate-sized bog-spavin. You have, I am sure, watched it 

 attentively, for its history is extremely interesting. When sent to us 

 one e\'ening last week it was on the road to the slaughterhouse. An 

 empiric, practising in the department of the Seine and Oise, had the 

 day before fired it in lines on the hock. The horse had thrown itself 

 down violently, and on rising was no longer able to place weight on 

 the off fore-limb. The quack declared the animal had fractured a 

 phalanx, and was incurable. The owner thereupon sold it to a butcher 

 in Paris for the sum of loo francs, reserving to himself, however, the 

 right to send it here for examination, so that the question as to its 

 incurability might be finally decided. 



The animal walked out of the ambulance without much difficulty. 

 The foot of the so-called fractured limb w^as brought to the ground 

 resting on the toe, and the flexion of the knee, fetlock, and elbow when 

 at rest, as well as the excessive flexion of the last joint when walking, 

 immediately suggested to me that the animal was suff'ering from radial 

 paralysis. The phalangeal region, like all the other parts of the limb, 

 showed no sign whatever of fracture. I was therefore able to reassure 

 the owner, and the sale was broken off. We placed the animal in 

 slings. Treatment consisted in simple massage of the shoulder, arm, 

 and forearm, especially of the extensors of the forearm and metacarpus. 

 At the end of forty-eight hours improvement was very manifest. At 

 the present time — scarcely a week after the accident — cure is complete, 

 so complete that there is not the slightest irregularity in movement, 

 and it would be impossible for a stranger to say that the animal had 

 suffered from parahsis. 



