68 SPECIAL EQUINE THERAPY 



may hang on for months, even with treatment, and in 

 some cases remains permanently. The mortality is very 

 low, probably not more than two per cent. Cases in 

 which the early symptoms have passed unnoticed, may 

 be found down, unable to rise. 



The condition must be differentiated from azoturia, 

 and from injuries to the lumbar or sacral region. In 

 some exceptionally well marked cases there is ptosis af- 

 fecting one eye-lid. 



Treatment. Cases that are found down should be 



^ given from one-fourth to three-fourths grain of atropin 

 sulphate, hypodermically, before anything else is done. 

 This gives marvelously prompt results in many of these 

 eases; the animal frequently rises without assistance in 

 an hour or two thereafter. 



, In those cases which come into the veterinarian 's hands 

 in the early stages, a purging dose of areeolin or eserin 

 is indicated, but it is a question whether this is good 

 treatment, everything considered, because of the addi- 

 tional effusion that may occur into the meningeal spaces 

 as a result of the action of these drugs. I have treated 

 animals affected with this disease by giving areeolin and 

 coordination was more interfered with than in cases 

 where areeolin was not used. For that reason I say that a 

 purging dose of areeolin or eserin (basing our treatment 

 on the intestinal stasis) would be indicated. "While the 

 early signs of the disease are in almost every case 

 promptly cheeked by a dose of either of these drugs, I 

 do not recommend their adoption as routine medicament. 

 I much prefer a cathartic dose of aloes. 



Intestinal antiseptics are to be administered from the 

 beginning and should be kept up for at least a week. 

 Either salol or the sulpho-carbolates compound can be 

 used, giving half-dram doses of the former and sixty- 

 grain doses of the latter. 



