DISEASES OF THE UKAiJN AJND JNJSKVOUS SYSTEM. 67 



■of blood to the head. After the horse has fallen, by his struggles 

 and herculean efforts to battle with the malady, although uncon- 

 ciously, he soon breaks out into a profuse perspiration. This has 

 the effect of relaxing the capillaries so that the blood circulates more 

 freely and uniformly. An equilibrium of the circulation takes place, 

 and this is the end of epilepsy for the time being. But a horse once 

 having had a fit of this kind must be looked upon with suspicion; 

 for he is liable, when under excitement from wanton punishment, 

 or from exercising great feats of strength in drawing heavy loads, 

 to have a re-attack. 



Cause.— The predisposing cause of epilepsy has an hereditary 

 origin. Horses subject to it have a misshapen head. It is not 

 symmetrical — does not correspond with the conformation of the 

 neck and body. In the language of the turf, "the head is too 

 coarse." It has been found, also, among members of the human 

 family, that epileptics have heads of an unnatural shape. Wat- 

 son says : " There is no doubt that a tendency to epileptic disease 

 is frequently hereditary. It may be bequeathed from parent to 

 child, or it may skip over a generation or two, and appear in the 

 grandchild or great-grandchild ; or it may be traceable only in the 

 collateral branches of the ancestry." Epilepsy, however, may not 

 always arise as an hereditary affection ; for a mere passive conges- 

 tion of the brain, owing to a loss of equilibrium in the circulation 

 of the blood, may produce it. In regard to the horse, it is ver$ 

 difficult for us to decide on the universal hereditariness of the 

 nalady, because we have no reliable history of the ancestry and 

 idiosyncrasies of our equine patients; yet if we study carefully the 

 external conformation of well-formed horses, and make ourselves 

 conversant with anatomy, we shall be better able to judge whether 

 or no such an animal carries about with him the inherent tenden- 

 cies to particular diseases ; and this knowledge will make up, to a 

 certain extent, for the advantage which human medicine has over 

 the veterinary in this department of knowledge. The principal 

 S} T mp + oms of epilepsy are as follows : 



Symptoms. — Suppose the horse attached to a vehicle, and trav- 

 eling along at any given pace. He gives a sudden, snorting, 

 loud noise, and falls to the ground instantly, as if felled by some 

 unknown power. Here he lies, to all appearance, totally uncon- 

 scious, violently convulsed in every limb, his eyes staring as 

 though they would burst out of their sockets; the mouth foama 



