388 ENZOOTIC PARAPLEGIA, 



numerous, for although the disease is common enough, in 

 some seasons very common, and although hundreds of cases 

 may pass through the practitioner's hands, and in different 

 ways receive treatment, the mortality is never great ; none, 

 indeed, dying where the animals have been observed early, and 

 have received the benefit of professional advice. All cases that 

 afforded the opportunity of a post-mortem examination had 

 been severely seized from the first, and were unable to stand 

 when advice was obtained, or very shortly afterwards came to 

 the ground. While alive, they all exhibited a certain amount 

 of cerebral disturbance ; in this they were unlike the great 

 majority of the affected, where symptoms of cerebral involve- 

 ment is not a marked feature. In no case have I ever observed 

 any great and well-marked organic lesions ; in many I have 

 been much disappointed at not seeing, as I imagined, very satis- 

 factory causes for the symptoms shown during life, far less for 

 the fatal termination. The state of the digestive organs is 

 variable, sometimes the stomach is full, at others both this 

 viscus and the intestinal canal contain little ingesta ; the only 

 approach to disease being trifling congestion at separate and 

 detached portions, but chiefly in or near the stomach. 



The lungs are invariably congested, partly from the position 

 in which the animal has been laid both before and after death, 

 and partly from the existing cerebral conditions. In some 

 instances there may be noticed cerebral congestion, while I 

 have fancied that in the lumbo-sacral region the cord was 

 somewhat softened, the membranes injected with an extra 

 quantity of slightly coloured fluid ; at other times no abnormal 

 conditions of the brain or cord revealed themselves, certainly 

 not hyperff'mia, rather the opposite. Other abnormal appear- 

 ances which I may occasionally have met with in either thorax, 

 abdomen, or pelvis I believe not to have been essentially 

 connected with the disease itself, but rather accidental. 



Symptoms. — These are gradually developed, not, as in 

 paralysis, from primary cerebral disease or mechanical injury; 

 neither have we the dull, listless condition, gradual^ passing 

 on to somnolence and coma, characteristic of brain involve- 

 ment, consequent on gastric engorgement or indigestion. In 

 this particular form of paraplegia the affected animals arc first 

 of all observed as deficient in control over their voluntary 



