PARTIAL PARALYSIS. 37 
hind foot is perpetually getting in the way of the other, and constantly 
threatening to throw the animal down, whose walk already is rolling or 
unsteady. 
This affection is the property of matured animals; so rarely as to be 
exceptional is it to be seen attacking colts. Fast trotters, omnibus 
horses, hunters, and creatures subjected to extreme exertion, are most 
liable to it. It creeps on insidiously. At first the pace is as fast as 
ever; but something is suspected wrong in the manner of going. After 
a time the creature is brought to a veterinary surgeon as a lame horse. 
The suspicions are then destroyed and the real malady is announced. 
The decay of the more showy powers seems to bring forward the 
gentler qualities of the horse’s nature. The animal, which once was 
dangerous, loses all its dreaded attributes: with paralysis, it becomes 
meek or tame, as though the big life felt its great affliction and sought 
to compensate, by amiability, for the trouble it necessarily gave, or, in 
other words, that the animal was mildly pleading for existence. No 
doubt much of such a sentiment, if not all, resides in the mind of the 
spectator, the animal only being subdued by sickness. Still, it is very 
sad to contemplate the horse, which once could outstrip the sparrow in 
its flight, reduced to a pace which the tortoise might leave behind; to 
behold the beast, once powerful and proud of its strength, humbled to a 
feebleness which the push of any child might overthrow. It is more 
sorrowful, when we think its hurt was received from him to whom its 
welfare was intrusted; that its injury was the consequence of an over- 
anxiety to please and to obey. It may be well doubted whether, when 
man was given dominion over the beasts of the field, he was invested - 
with an absolute authority over God’s creatures, which had no moral 
duties nor obligations attached to it. At all events, it would be difficult 
to find an object more suggestive of pity, or better calculated to excite 
our inward reflections, than a horse suffering under partial paralysis. 
Paralysis is generally past all cure; occasionally, however, it admits 
of relief. It is an eccentric disorder, and it is difficult to say, positively, 
what medicine will be of use. The horse, however, during paralysis, 
should enjoy absolute rest. In its disabled state, a little walk is as 
great an exertion as once was a breathing gallop; and it was over- 
exercise which induced the disorder. The animal should receive only 
strengthening physic and the most nourishing of food. The following 
ball should be administered, night and morning :— 
Strychnia, half a grain, gradually, or in six weeks to be worked up 
to a grain and a half; iodide of iron, one grain; quassia powder and 
treacle, a sufficiency: to be given night and morning. 
The grooming should be persevered with, the animal being carefully 
