ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
240 
sensibility of certain parts, very peculiar in its character. There 
has been lesion or bruise of the integument ; and although the 
wound has healed, and the injured portion appears externally to 
have been perfectly restored, the nervous fibrils have not regained 
their healthy tone. Circumstances of the most trifling nature 
excite a degree of uneasiness that often degenerates into extreme 
pain. A change takes place in the weather; the weight and 
pressure of the atmosphere has considerably varied ; it has ma- 
terially diminished ; and the balance between the pressure of the 
external air and the resistance or elasticity of that within the 
integumeot is disturbed. If the parts were in a healthy state 
they would scarcely be affected by, or would accommodate them- 
selves to the change, but they retain, from this previous injury, a 
degree of morbid irritability, and considerable uneasiness or acute 
pain is felt in the part. The corn shoots, and the rheumatic 
joint aches, and the nerve of the carious tooth gives torture 
scarcely to be borne. There are few persons who have attained 
to a considerable age without being painfully conscious of many 
atmospheric changes. The foot, or the stump, is as true an in- 
dicator of the weather as the best barometer can be. Some 
pride themselves on this gift of prophecy with which they are 
beginning to be endowed ; but it is a faculty dearly purchased 
at the expense of many a twinge and many a cramp. 
In Animals: The Horse . — There is scarcely an animal that 
comes under our medical care in which nearly the same affection 
is not visible. A valuable horse has been ridden by day and by 
night, in fair weather and in foul, at moderate speed, and some- 
times almost without Ncompassion. He has been lame many a 
time, and I have traced the situation and nature of the lameness ; 
he has been lame at other times, and there was not the slightest 
heat, engorgement, or tenderness to point out to me either the 
one or the other. After aw hile it disappears ; but it returns 
again, perhaps after some severe exertion ; possibly without any 
assignable cause ; until, at length, I begin to trace a coincidence 
between a return of the lameness and cold and wet weather. I 
examine still more carefully, and I find that the lameness pre- 
cedes the atmospheric change. I dare not go farther. Thus far, 
however, I have been able satisfactorily to go ; and mentioning 
the circumstances to other practitioners, or observant horsemen, 
I find that their conclusions and mine do not materially dis- 
agree. 
The Dog . — The huntsman has better opportunity for ob- 
serving these things. He has had* the chest founder in his 
kennel, possibly owing to his own negligence, or the aspect of the 
building, or the soil on which it stands. He has observed these 
