SCLEROSIS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 365 



length of tlie spine on both sides, but no cantharides to be 

 used with it. In internal use, following the subsidence of in- 

 flammation, strychnine, either as strychnine or in the prepara- 

 tion Imown as Easton's sjTup, given twice daily, combined 

 with some alcoholic preparation, in many instances answers 

 well. Along with these medicaments due attention should be 

 given to secure good dieting, correct sanitary conditions, and 

 quietude. Occasionally very well-marked cases of spinal 

 disease will, under patient and judicious treatment, exhibit 

 marked improvement, although it must be confessed that they 

 are ever to be regarded as serious affections. 



III. Sclerosis of the Nervous Centres. 



The condition now Imown by the term sclerosis — hardening 

 — of the nervous centres, to which investigation has of late 

 years been much directed in human pathology, has received 

 less attention from veterinary authorities than it deserves. 

 From what opportunities I have had of attending to diseases 

 aftecting these structures, I feel satisfied that both in the 

 cranial and spinal centres this is a condition which in the 

 horse oftener exists than has hitherto been allowed. 



Situation, Nature, and Causation. — The cases which have come 

 under my observation have been pretty equally distributed 

 between the cerebellal structure and that of the spinal cord ; I 

 have not observed it in connection with the cerebral centres 

 proper. The animals have all of them been adults, none that 

 might be regarded as worn out from age, but such as had 

 during their life been engaged in rather hard work, and in no 

 way deteriorated by other depressing sanitary conditions. In 

 some instances, I am aware that the animals exhibiting the 

 changes indicative of this condition have belonged to families in 

 which there were known to exist several sufferers from ill-defined 

 nervous affections, chiefly associated with the develo23ment 

 during life of muscular spasms, usually of a choreic character. 



Whether or not in its nature inflammatory, the condition as 

 presented for our observation in textural changes is essentially 

 an extra development of the connective-tissue peculiar to 

 masses of nervous matter, the neuroglia. This in addition 

 to abnormal conditions previously existing, or which have 

 only lately been called into existence in ultimate nervous 



