yo CLINICAL VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



Even in cases of complete paralysis, cutaneous sensibility is usually 

 normal, or only slightly diminished, a fact attributed to the less sus- 

 ceptibility to injury of the sensory as compared with the motor fibres. 

 This is probably an error, however, the persistence of sensation being 

 due to collateral innervation, any deficiency being supplied by neigh- 

 bouring nerves. Sometimes sensibility to pain is markedly diminished, 

 and cases are not infrequently seen in which the anterior and external 

 surfaces of the forearm are anaesthetic. Like loss of sensation, vaso- 

 motor disturbance is rare, though abundant perspiration, corresponding 

 in area to that of the paralysed muscles, has been described. I have never 

 seen coldness of the skin. Localised swelling is almost alwa5's due to 

 violence, followed by haemorrhage and sanguineous infiltration of the 

 subcutaneous and muscular tissues ; though it may also follow muscular 

 rupture, haemoglobinuria, or local strain. 



The condition recognised as "radial paralysis" is not invariably of 

 nervous origin ; sometimes it follows muscular injuries. At the post- 

 mortem of certain horses which had been over-driven, and showed 

 symptoms of complete radial paralysis, Frohner found the radial nerve 

 intact, whilst the muscles it supplies were swollen, infiltrated, and yel- 

 lowish ; their fibres had lost the normal striation, and had undergone 

 granular degeneration. In this form the paralj^tic symptoms are 

 accompanied by those of acute inflammation of muscle. 



The course taken by radial paralysis depends on its cause, as well 

 as on the gravity of injury to the nerve and neighbouring tissues ; but 

 as it is impossible to detect the actual lesions, nothing precise can be 

 said on this head. Sometimes the symptoms diminish within a few 

 days, and the animal rapidly recovers ; more frequently they persist 

 unchanged for several weeks : improvement then occurs, and usually 

 makes good progress. The paralysis generally persists for a month to 

 six weeks. An important point to remember is that recovery is the 

 common termination of simple unilateral radial paralysis. Of sixty-eight 

 recorded cases, only two proved incurable, i. e. a proportion of about 

 three per cent. In obstinate cases the atrophy of muscle which occurs 

 at a certain stage renders prognosis somewhat graver. Exercise favours 

 recovery, but it is important not to return animals to heavy work too 

 ■soon. Relapses have often been seen, and are almost always very 

 troublesome. I should add that this paralysis is very grave under two 

 conditions : (i) when it is double-sided, because then the horse is 

 obliged to remain lying for a long time ; and (2) when an animal, in 

 consequence of some severe operation on, say, the right fore-foot, has 

 been forced to remain lying for a long time on the left side (or vice 



