REVIEW— Mil. PE11CIV ALL’S HIPPOPATHOLOGY. Ill 
We quite agree with our author, that hemiplegia is a disease 
of very rare occurrence in the horse ; nay, we even go farther, 
and are satisfied that many of the cases called hemiplegia are 
merely those of acute rheumatism, affecting the anterior and 
posterior extremities of the same side of the body at the same 
time. We recollect an excellent illustration of this: — A young 
foreign horse, recently purchased in town and brought into the 
country, was found in the morning leaning against the side of 
his stall, and, on endeavouring to move him, it was found that 
his off fore and hind legs were nearly useless. It took half an 
hour to get him out of the stable into an adjoining box, and then 
it was done only by the aid of several men supporting him along 
against the wall. A smart dose of physic put him to rights in 
eight-and-forty hours; indeed, as soon as the medicine began to 
operate, relief was obtained ; but within a week he had a pre- 
cisely similar attack on the near side, and with the same result. 
Acute rheumatism simulates some other diseases equally close, 
and it is only by its shifting character, and its readily yielding to 
a dose or two of physic, that it can be recognised. 
The details of that very serious disease — paraplegia — are very 
fully and ably given, and its etiology, with a single exception, 
accurately traced. This exception, we are rather disposed to be- 
lieve, is a not unfrequent cause of the complaint. We allude 
to exostosis of the bodies of the vertebrae, frequently the last, 
or the last but one, of the dorsal, but more generally the lumbar. 
We have now on the table before us two very interesting speci- 
mens : one is caries of the bodies of the two last dorsal vertebrae, 
with adventitious deposit of soft calcareous matter, to the extent 
of the size of an orange, which, during life, merely produced a 
slight stiffness in the action, until the disease had advanced so far 
that the animal fell and broke his back, but without the slightest 
precursory symptoms of any affection of the spinal marrow. In 
the other is a hard bony deposit between the first and second 
lumbar vertebrae, about the size and shape of a date, two-thirds 
being external, and the other third projecting into and lessening 
the diameter of the spinal canal. This horse was found down, 
paraplegitic in the field, and, after a week’s unsuccessful treat- 
ment, was destroyed. Two other cases have also occurred, in 
