2 
DISEASE OF THE HEART OF A HORSE. 
gain strength in her hocks, to turn her once more into straw-yard. 
It may be remarked here, that her hocks were found fault with on 
account of their form at the time she was purchased ; but no dis- 
ease was detectible in them, neither did she then in her action 
evince any “ weakness ” in them, or, at least, any more than 
might be expected from their faulty conformation, and from her 
tender age. 
On the 19th of October my attention was drawn to her in the 
straw-yard, as looking dull and tucked up, rough in her coat, and 
not “doing well;” and on these accounts I had her immediately 
removed from the yard into a loose box, in order that attention 
might be paid to her, and proper care taken of her. For the first 
few days I was quite unable to say what her complaint might be. 
She was dull and dispirited, looked altogether far from well, and 
yet there were to be discovered no symptoms of a character to indi- 
cate any particular disease. The most remarkable symptom at 
this period was a crouching in her gait, as though she felt soreness 
or pain in moving her hind parts : she walked with slow, cautious, 
and measured step, and rather “ dragged her hind quarters after her” 
than moved them in harmony with the fore parts. Notwithstand- 
ing her spirits were low, her appetite was good, at least so far good 
that she ate pretty well all that was put before her, though not 
with any avidity, or indeed with any great deal of seeming relish: 
still, slow as she ate, she consumed her ration of provender. She 
had aperient medicine given her, and afterwards a blister was ap- 
plied along the lumbar region of the spine, from a notion that there 
might exist some affection of the spinal marrow ; for, independently 
of her peculiar gait, she stood in the box with her back arched and 
her hocks flexed, and fore feet thrown back underneath her body 
as far as possible, as though she had pain in her back or loins. 
Beside this, the only other symptom worthy of remark was a par- 
ticularly free-beating distinct pulse, about 60; but, as there was 
no disturbance of her respiration at this time, not much notice was 
taken of this circumstance. She was bled on account of it, but 
the abstraction occasioned little or no abatement of the pulsation, 
and was attended with no benefit, save affording this additional in- 
formation, that the coagulum of her blood was large in propor- 
tionate quantity, and appeared at the same time the most complete 
solid of the kind, the firmest and toughest crassamentum, I had 
ever felt or handled. 
Looking to-day — the 12th October, the third day from her ad- 
mission — over the (half) door of my patient’s box, meditating on 
her case, I was struck with the extraordinary pulsations I saw in 
the jugular vein in the side of the neck opposed to me. They were 
not the undulations usually perceptible in the jugulars, — they were 
