MORBID STATES OF SENSATION. 
247 
to be dreadfully tortured by intense itching. The wool is tom 
away in mouthfuls — the skin is lacerated in numerous places — 
the animal is in incessant motion, and pines away and dies in a 
less time than would scarcely be thought possible. 
I do not know any case in which an excess of sensibility 
spread over the whole of the skin, not as a consequence of cuta- 
neous disease, but an evident affection of the sensitive nerves ; 
a very singular one of hemi-hyperaesthesia, however, if I may so 
call it, did come under my notice. A horse was bitten in the 
left hind leg by a mad dog, and in process of time he became 
rabid. The owner would not have him destroyed, and he was 
slung, in order to prevent mischief to himself or others. When 
I approached that side the poor animal was agitated, and 
trembled, and struggled as well as he could ; and if I touched 
him only with my finger, a profuse perspiration broke out, and 
the pulsations were quickened more than ten beats in a minute. 
If I went round to the right side, he permitted me to pat him, 
and pressed his head against me, and sought my notice. There 
are several cases recorded of the human being, in which the 
sensibility was morbidly increased on one side, while on the 
other side there was the natural degree of feeling, and in some 
cases much less than the natural degree, and even none at all. 
Two sets of perfectly opposite symptoms, produced by the same 
cause, existed at the same time, and the barrier between them 
was the mesian line of the spinal cord. 
Conclusion . — Well, gentlemen, I terminate this obscure and 
comparatively profitless subject. We have no data, and we 
must not reason without them. The only conclusion, perhaps, 
at which we can arrive is, that in the common and healthy 
state a certain degree of nervous sensibility is, for wise and be- 
nevolent purposes, withheld from the brute ; but that the dis- 
eases of the nervous system present much similarity, or almost 
identity, and that under disease a great degree of suffering, 
perhaps not an equal one, awaits both. 
Of the treatment of these neuroses I have said but little, 
because I know but little of their nature and their indications of 
cure. Perhaps, if our knowledge of them approached to that of 
the human teacher, I should still be cautious what I said ; for, 
while not a single veterinary surgeon treats on these complaints, 
I find, when I have recourse to medical authorities, that the 
physician most uniformly and most strenuously recommends 
constitutional treatment, and with the surgeon there is nothing 
like the knife ; and with both of them I should begin to fancy 
that “ there is nothing like leather,” did I not recollect an honest 
and downright difference of opinion between two splendid 
