26 i APOPLEXY. 



nostrils, or even the injection of it into those cavities : almost any 

 experiment of the kind being warrantable under such circum- 

 stances. The tobacco enema might be tested, supposing there 

 seemed any reasonable probability of its conferring benefit ; or a 

 mustard embrocation, made up with oil of turpentine, may be 

 spread upon the forehead and temples shorn of their hair. Pro- 

 viding we can by any measures dispel his lethargy — which, alas ! 

 there is but too much reason, from past experience, to be appre- 

 hensive we shall not succeed in accomplishing — the same re- 

 medies as are recommended for coma and phrenitis may, with 

 some variation in accordance with the change of circumstances, be 

 employed afterwards. 



Tracheotomy. — On no animal is this operation practised with 

 more facility than on the horse, neither are the consequences of it 

 such — though it may, now and then, leave the animal a roarer — as 

 to deter us from practising it in any case in which important benefit 

 is likely to accrue from it. Dr. Physick, of Philadelphia, first sug- 

 gested its performance in hydrophobia ; and Dr. Marshall Hall has 

 recently advised a trial of it in cases of apoplexy : his words are, 

 " in apoplexy from congestion, I am persuaded that the fatal event 

 might be averted by the timely adoption of this measure. The 

 patient dies of asphyxia, and of an asphyxia which tracheotomy 

 would, I believe, prevent ; or of coma, which blood-letting would 

 cure." 



VERTIGO— MEGRIMS. 



Indefinite and vague as the meaning of the common appellation 

 " megrims" is, it must, in accordance with custom, be admitted into 

 our nosology, and, being admitted, it will become the duty of the 

 scientific veterinarian to inquire to what especial disease he is to 

 attach it. Writers on farriery have regarded it as a sort of epi- 

 lepsy. But farther than the mere circumstances of both disorders 

 being sudden in their attacks and consisting in fits, there appears 

 no foundation for such analogy : on the contrary, when once the fits 

 of the two diseases have been actually witnessed, I should say any 

 attempt to institute a medical resemblance between them will by 

 the practical man be instantly abandoned. 



