VERTIGO — MEGRIMS. 27 



With those out of the profession who have much to do with 

 horses, megrims appears a disorder intelligible enough : every 

 horse-dealer or groom knows, as he thinks, well enough what me- 

 grims is ; — in his mind, there is no mistaking it for any thing else. 

 And, in point of fact, so far as a certain common assemblage of 

 symptoms go, as a recognisable malady, megrims needs no inter- 

 pretation; it being neither more nor less than what, in a medical 

 sense, we should designate vertigo. Even then, however, we are 

 not apprised of the nature of the morbid condition of the encepha- 

 lon on which we presume it depends. 



By vertigo — as synonymous with megrims — I do not mean any 

 simple or single symptom of giddiness which a staggered horse 

 may evince ; but I mean, an assemblage of vertiginous symptoms 

 which suddenly attack, and as suddenly disappear, after the manner 

 of a fit ; and to which horses all their lives may be at times subject, 

 and yet never experience what we understand by staggers, i. e., 

 encephalitis or phrenitis, or even coma. This makes me say, me- 

 grims is a disease sui generis ; though of what precise or definite 

 nature I am not, at present, prepared to give an opinion. 



The Symptoms are, a most unnatural and constrained elevation 

 of the head, and erection and stiffening of the neck, with such 

 awkward and obstinate protrusion of the nose, that all attempts to 

 rein in prove fruitless ; for this reason, and on account of the upward, 

 wild, vacant stare the countenance has, the horse, in slang language, 

 is often called '' a star-gazer." In some instances, however, the 

 carriage of the head, instead of being upward, is stiffly to one side. 

 Carry it, however, which way he may, the object of the animal 

 appears to be, to fix his head and render it as little as possible 

 affected by the movement of the body. Such a horse is readily 

 recognised as a " megrimed" subject — one that is apt to be sudden- 

 ly seized, every now and then, while at work, with stopping, and 

 violent shaking of the head, rearing and reeling round or backward, 

 and perhaps falling, to the imminent peril of himself as well as of his 

 rider or driver : in a minute or two, all is over, the animal has re- 

 covered his senses, and is able to resume his work ; though there 

 is mostly some manifestation of strangeness and debility about the 

 animal, which renders it, when it can be done, advisable — in some 



