22 APOPLEXY. 



US that the system is sufficiently recovered from its effects, we 

 must practise another arteriotomy or venesection, to as great an 

 amount as the animal's reduced powers will bear ; after which, 

 probably, it will be advisable that we should await the operation 

 of the purge and blisters, providing the latter appear disposed to 

 act ; if not, they must be repeated, or turpentine mustard plasters 

 may be substituted. Further than this it would be futile to pre- 

 tend to give directions for treatment : so much depends upon the 

 circumstances of the individual case, and so much must, conse- 

 quently, rest with the judgment of the practitioner in attendance, 

 that, beyond such general rules as are here laid down for his guid- 

 ance, it is in no one's power to direct his proceedings. 



APOPLEXY. 



This is a subject on which I am afraid I shall be at issue with 

 some of our most respected veterinary authorities. I cannot con- 

 sent to regard as apoplexy any form of the comatose or somnolescent 

 disorder, familiarly known by the name of sleepy staggers, although 

 I have described that affection as occasionally terminating in apo- 

 plexy. I regard apoplexy in the horse — in accordance with the 

 accepted definitions given of it in man — to be a general loss, and 

 commonly a sudden one, of consciousness, and feeling, and volun- 

 tary motion : respiration and circulation still continuing, but in a 

 more or less disturbed condition. It must be regarded as the most 

 dangerous form of cerebral disease. The horse attacked with it is 

 from the first prostrated. Should there have pre-existed any 

 warning symptoms, they have been unmanifested or have probably 

 escaped notice. We are called to the animal lying in a state of 

 insensibility and without the power of voluntarily moving, though 

 his limbs are relaxed, and perhaps agitated, as well as his body, 

 by tremor. His respiration is laboured, and sighing or stertorous, 

 and sometimes most loudly and distressfully so. His pulse is slow, 

 but full and strong. He is all over in a cold sweat, and his ex- 

 tremities are deadly cold. He perhaps froths at the mouth. His 

 nostrils are dilated, shewing a highly reddened state of the lining 

 membrane; and the conjunctive membranes are in the same ex- 

 cited condition. The eyes present a ghastly stare, arising from 



