394 DISTORTION OF THE NECK. 



German Army Reports a horse is mentioned in which paralysis of 

 the muscles and production of torticollis resulted from a carcino- 

 matous growth on the petrous temporal bone. Torticollis appears 

 in horses as an accompaniment of the general paralysis of cerebral 

 meningitis, and in diseases of the medulla oblongata and cervical 

 spinal cord. Wilden speaks of a ' horse which showed torticollis 

 during an acute brain attack, but recovered as the cerebral symptoms 

 disappeared. Leisering saw a dog which suffered from torticollis, 

 and simultaneously from hemiplegia and paralysis of the ear and 

 eye, with softening of the pons varolii, medulla oblongata and 

 cerebellum. In birds — -hens and ducks — -Moller has often seen the 

 head bent in a semicircle (so that the beak was turned backwards) 

 in consequence of brain disease, or following intoxication produced 

 by coal gas. The same is noticed in canaries. 



(3) Inflammation of the soft parts, especially of the muscles, 

 consequent on severe strains and lacerations, is produced in horses 

 by falling, and is often described as subluxation of the cervical 

 vertebrae. Fambach had under observation a horse which, by 

 hanging back in the halter, produced rupture of the round portion 

 of the ligamentum nuchas just behind the occiput ; pus formation 

 and necrosis occurred, and were followed by death. Flessa describes 

 a case of torticollis in a horse produced by rupture of the levator 

 humeri muscle between the upper and middle thirds ; recovery 

 occurred in two months. 



(4) Subluxation and fracture of the cervical vertebrae. Com- 

 plete luxation of the body of a vertebra, as above stated, is 

 almost always fatal. On the other hand, subluxation, accompanied 

 by distortion of the neck, may occur without injury to the spinal 

 cord. In France the condition is described as " entorse vertebro- 

 cervicale," and consists in subluxation of one or another of the oblique 

 processes of the bone. As the bodies of the vertebrae are attached 

 to one another by cartilage, their separation is more appropriately 

 described as diastasis, but this is a condition not infrequently com- 

 plicated with fracture of the oblique processes. According to 

 Schrader, Hippocrates declared that the conditions described as 

 displacement of the cervical vertebrae were often only muscular 

 diseases, and that Absyrtus, in his contemporary History, expressed 

 himself in the same sense. 1 Lebel, Hurtrel d'Arboval, and others 

 combated the possibility of displacement of the cervical vertebrae, and 

 supported their contention by citing cases of spontaneous recovery. 



1 Sed te nolo latere, non luxationem esse sed perversionem (Schrader). 



