A CASE OF APOPLEXY IN A HORSE. 
251 
remnant of barbarous pathology — staggering or stakkering, sup- 
posed to owe its origin to stack, signifying sticking or hesitating 
by the way — has had, in a medical sense, all sorts of meanings : 
let a horse but stagger, move or stand unstably, no matter what 
be the cause, he is in a moment said to have “ the staggers.” In 
our own time and among ourselves, staggers has been generally 
considered to be a disorder of the brain, or else one of the sto- 
mach, there being such a compound as stomach-staggers ; but even 
with this understanding, phrenitis, apoplexy, megrims, hydroce- 
phalus, &c., to say nothing about gorged or tympanitic stomachs, 
' have all been confounded under the generic and convenient appel- 
lation of “ staggers.” With a view of rescuing one of these dis- 
eases from this incongruous jumble, and one whose discovery when 
present is of vast importance to us, and of still vaster to our 
patients, I send the following detail, as furnishing an example of 
what is, and what, in my opinion, alone ought to be called, apo- 
plexy in the horse. 
A chestnut well-bred hackney, aged, the property of F — L — , 
Esq., about eleven o’clock on the morning of the 31st January, 
1843, suddenly fell prostrate in his stall. My assistant, who hap- 
pened to be doing something in a stable adjoining, heard the noise 
occasioned by his fall, and instantly ran round to see what was the 
matter. There he lay, motionless, insensible, and to all appear- 
ance dead. “ I had no sooner, however,” says my assistant, “ got 
to his head, than I heard him breathe, and ascertained that he 
had a pulse beating quick and boundingly. I hesitated not a 
moment to draw blood : I first opened one jugular ; but the blood 
not flowing very fast, in the position in which the patient was 
lying, from that, I opened as well the temporal artery of the up- 
permost side.” This sent forth a jet de sang, and both vessels were 
suffered to bleed until so much blood had flowed that — no return 
of motion or sense appearing — danger from loss of blood began 
to be apprehended ; and then both bleeding vessels were pinned 
up. I was out riding at the time the attack took place, but re- 
turned about noon, and then found the patient, who had recovered 
the faculties of sense and motion, experiencing violent fits of con- 
vulsion (with intervals of quietude) during which he thrust his head 
against the wall underneath the manger, burying his nose in the 
straw and breathing with the loud and characteristic stertor of coma. 
To my inquiries, the groom assured me that the horse had shewn 
no previous indisposition whatever. He had taken his exercise this 
morning early, led with the other horse, with his usual cheerfulness, 
had fed well over-night, and had, in fact, up to the moment of at- 
tack appeared in perfect health. Lying in the position in which he 
was, prostrate upon his belly with his limbs doubled underneath him, 
