RADIAL PARALYSIS IN THE HORSE. 67 



wound due to the blister, carbolic lotion was applied to the scapulo- 

 humeral and antibrachial regions. Four drachms of iodide of potas- 

 sium were given daily. The wound on the foot was covered with a 

 surgical wool dressing ; it healed rapidly. 



For a week the paralysis did not diminish in the smallest degree. 

 The horse was exercised for a short time every day, and the parts 

 massaged. During the second week no improvement was recorded. 



The slings were then removed, the iodide of potassium was discon- 

 tinued, and the animal was exercised for twenty minutes night and 

 morning. Movement was particularly painful at first, and the limb 

 could hardly be extended. Improvement did not commence until after 

 a month. The patient then began to walk more willingly than before, 

 the paralysed limb at times being distinctly extended. The muscles 

 having commenced to waste to a marked degree, lo c.c. of a one per 

 cent, solution of sulphate of veratrin were injected under the skin, and 

 the application repeated a week later. For a fortnight more there was 

 little improvement ; afterwards the animal recovered with fair rapidit}-. 

 As time passed, more and more weight was placed on the limb, and 

 during movement the parts were freely extended. The last symptoms 

 did not disappear until the commencement of the third month. 



Being almost entirel\- confined to the horse, and rare in other animals, 

 radial paralysis was long mistaken for articular, bon}-, or muscular 

 disease of the shoulder and arm. Continental authorities have erro- 

 neously attributed to Giinther the merit of having in 1866 first exactly 

 described it in his ' Myologie.' Goubaux, in his " Memoires sur les 

 Paralysies locales," which appeared in the Rccticil de Mcdccine Vctc- 

 rinaire, just half a centur}- ago set forth the character of complete and 

 of incomplete paralysis of the posterior humeral nerve. Since that time 

 a large number of cases have been recorded. 



In the fore-limb, movements of extension are specially under the 

 control of the radial. It supplies the muscles attached to the olecranon 

 and the anterior antibrachial muscles, the five extensor muscles of the 

 forearm, the anterior extensor of the metacarpus, both extensors of the 

 phalanges, and by a branch which passes in a backward direction the 

 external flexor muscle of the metacarpus. On account of its position, 

 course, and relations, the radial is exposed to compression and to 

 mechanical violence : it is therefore much more frequently the seat 

 of injury than the other nerves of the fore-limb. Double radial 

 parah'sis of central origin is said to have occurred, but almost all the 

 practitioner is called on to treat are peripheral unilateral paralyses. 



The ?etiolog}' is complex, but mechanical injur}- is by far the com- 



