886 THE EXTERIOR OF THE HORSE. 



out am- appreciable motive ? How can we account for those sudden 

 attacks of terror which are witnessed in some horses in the midst of 

 the greatest external quietude, and which so closely resemble halluci- 

 nations ? To what are we to attribute the caprices, the stubbornness, 

 of the balky horse, and the occasional fury of the dumminess? What 

 significance are we to attach to the last period of excitement of the 

 runaway horse ? What are we to think of the feeling of aversion or 

 anger displayed towards the colors white and red, or towards certain 

 species of inoffensive animals ? Why, in a word, may not the horse, 

 which also has intelligence, be liable to perversions of judgment, dis- 

 turbances of intellectual sensibility, or other moral perturbations, re- 

 sembling human mania, dementia, delirium, and insanity ? In domestic 

 animals, says Littre and Robin,' cases of idiocy and imbecility, either 

 congenital or consequent upon diseases of the brain or its meninges, 

 have been observed. To say nothing of ordinary delirium, horses labor- 

 ing under hallucinations and others which had lost the consciousness 

 of their bodily wants have been met with. Aside from cases of acute 

 disease, there are well-attested instances in w^iich the mental states of 

 dogs were similar to those of insane persons. There are hallucinations 

 during the whole of the hydrophobic stage. 



We take this opportunity to raise the interesting question of in- 

 tellectual aberrations in the horse, and propose it to our colleagues as 

 a subject of study which up to this time has been almost unexplored, 

 although very worthy of being investigated. It would be instructive 

 to determine by the autopsies of balky, runaway, and other vicious 

 horses whether there exist any alteration of the brain and its envelopes, 

 in relation to weight, form, volume, blood-vessel supply, intimate struct- 

 ure, etc. Perhaps we should find lesions like those which have been 

 met with in the human species, and also in cases of immobility. 



CHAPTER III. 



CHOICE OF THE HORSE. 



Before proceeding to the choice of the horse, the reader should be 

 acquainted with certain facts which concern the seller and the pur- 

 chaser in order that he may have a correct idea of the difficulties 



1 Littr^ et Robin, Dictionnaire de m6(}ecine, etc., p. 629, 14e ed., Paris, 1878. 



