PALSY IN TIIE HOUSE. 
9 
much resembling, or in some cases constituting, palsy. What- 
ever lesion or injury or mismanagement can excite sympathetic 
inflammation or irritation of the spinal chord, may be the cause 
of palsy. 
Symptoms. — Generally speaking, there are few precursor symp- 
toms. On the previous day the horse is apparently well : he 
is found on the following morning, or soon after some severe ac- 
cident, dreadfully lame ; in great pain ; and shifting his weight 
from one limb to another. In some cases there may be previous 
fever, heaving, illness which can scarcely be referred to any parti- 
cular part, or derived from any particular cause. Very shortly, 
however, the mischief can be traced to one leg ; perhaps both are 
equally affected : the animal can scarcely walk ; he walks on his 
fetlocks instead of his soles ; he staggers at every motion ; he 
hurries along to prevent himself from falling ; at length he falls ; 
he is raised with difficulty, or he never rises again. 
The sensibility seems for awhile to be very much increased, 
but the feeling of the part, and the sensibility generally, gradu- 
ally subside — they get below the usual standard — they cease 
altogether. There are none of those sudden suspensions of 
feeling and voluntary motion which are recorded of the human 
patient, because it is not so often an affair of the head. It is 
the result of spinal disease or injury — it originates in inflam- 
mation of the spine or its membranes, whatever be the cause of 
that inflammation ; and it is ushered in by fever and excruciating 
pain. When the pain which accompanies the first attack has 
passed over, the animal, with the exception of his powerless 
limbs, appears for a while — a time of very uncertain duration — 
in the full possession of all his senses, and eats and drinks as 
usual. I have seen colts, in whom there had been rheumatism 
or affection of the joints resembling, or running on to, palsy, 
preserving their full appetite, and all their gaiety, and ex- 
pressing, as plainly as they could do, their desire to gambol 
about with their companions. 
Post-mortem Appearances. — In almost every case, and usually 
about the lumbar region, there is inflammation of the mem- 
branes of the chord, or of the chord itself. The membranes 
are highly injected, or gorged with blood, or thickened, or with 
serous infiltration between them, or with their surfaces covered 
with minute concretions. The medullary matter is of a yellow 
colour, or on being cut into with a keen scalpel minute points 
of blood from the minute vessels of the delicate tissue in which 
the spinal marrow is contained follow the knife ; or, and in pro- 
portion as the sensitive system has or has not been involved, the 
whole of the spinal chord at that part will be softened — semi- 
VOL. IX. C 
