418 CHOREA. 



choreic manifestation, various methods, according to circum- 

 stances and opportunities afforded, are employed to elicit the 

 characteristic muscular contractions. Of these, the most 

 usually adopted and successful are, in the stable, for the 

 observer to place himself behind the animal and cause him to 

 pass from side to side of the stall, when most likely, if subject 

 to choreic spasms, the affected limb or limbs will be detected 

 by being lifted from the ground higher and more rapidly than 

 natural. They are also projected slightly backwards, accom- 

 paniod with a slight amount of motion in the tail, and a 

 tremulous movement of the muscles of the haunch, being kept 

 somewhat longer suspended in a hesitating manner, and rather 

 rapidly replaced on the ground. If the horse is taken by the 

 head, either in the stable or out of it, and made to move directly 

 backwards, the probability is that, if a sufferer from chorea, 

 the same spasmodic movements will be executed. 



Seldom is the state of spasm, if slight, obsers'ed when the 

 animal is trotted straight forward ; but it may be detected on 

 his being turned rather rapidly round. In many instances the 

 characteristic twitchings of the muscles of the loins, thighs, 

 and of the erector muscles of the tail, are markedly visible 

 when the animal is engaged in the act of drinking. Although 

 the muscles of the hind extremities are in the horse the espe- 

 cial seat of the peculiar clonic contractions characteristic of 

 choreic disturbance, cases will yet be met with in which these 

 phenomena are associated with the muscles of the neck and 

 anterior extremities. When appearing in these, the symptoms 

 are marked by the same irregularity as respects their severity 

 and periods of recurrence as when seen in the more ordinary 

 situations. 



Treatment. — As the causes which seem to operate in the pro- 

 duction of this disturbance of nerve function, of which the 

 symptoms recognised as choreic arc but the natural expression, 

 are not in every case exactly similar, so it is but natural to 

 expect that the moderation of the symptoms, or their removal, 

 may be looked for from the employment of means varied rather 

 than similar. 



With horses, although any remedial measures which may be 

 employed arc rarely productive of such beneficial results as 

 follow their use in other animals, the lines of treatment indi- 



