PALSY IN THE HOUSE. 
7 
lumns on the inferior superficies of the horse with that of the 
same columns on the anterior face of the spinal marrow of the 
human being. The principle of intellect is developed in the 
one ; the other is chiefly formed with reference to muscular 
.strength and endurance. 
The spinal chord is more exposed to injury, and injury which 
will affect not one side only, but the whole of the chord at that 
part. It is also an anatomical fact; that the decussating fibriculi 
which extend from one motor column to the other, and connect 
the two together in consentaneous action in the animal whom 
we often tax so severely, and whose utility to us consists princi- 
pally in his muscular strength, are far larger in the horse than in 
man ; and, by means of these connecting fibres, disease also is 
more likely to spread from side to side. It is on these accounts 
that while hemiplegia is the form which palsy oftenest assumes 
in the human being, paraplegia, or palsy equally affecting both 
sides, is the most frequent malady of the quadruped. Hemiple- 
gia is, generally speaking, an affection of the brain — paraplegia, 
one of the spinal chord. The one belongs to the intellectual 
being, the other to him in whom the powers of muscular action 
and of organic life are most developed. 
The Hind Extremities chiefly . — Palsy in the horse generally 
attacks the hind extremities. Chariot, however, as quoted by 
Hurtrel D’Arboval, gives a singular account of a case of palsy in 
the fore limbs. A horse, while working at the plough, became 
suddenly lame — at one moment before, and then behind, and at 
length he fell. His respiration was accelerated — the mucous 
membranes reddened — the pulse frequent — a cough, painful and 
almost continual — and he was frequently looking round at his 
belly. His fore limbs were stretched out inflexible ; his hind 
ones were in perpetual motion. When an attempt was made to 
raise him, the fore legs remained motionless, while with his hind 
legs he gave such an impulse to his body that his head was bent 
under his chest. Sometimes he would effect this of his own ac- 
cord ; he would raise himself on his hind legs, and, supporting 
himself alternately on his head and crest, would move along 
through a space of several yards. He was continually covered 
with profuse perspiration, and his urine was brick-coloured. 
The horse died on the third day. The chest was filled with 
bloody fluid — the pleura highly inflamed and thickened — the 
lungs gorged with blood — the substance of the heart soft and easily 
torn — the muscles generally of the fore-legs softened and disco- 
loured — the spinal marrow softened and injected, and the brachial 
nervous plexus evidently reddened. 
