356 . 
NEPHRITIS AND PARAPLEGIA, COMPLETE OR IN- 
COMPLETE, ATTRIBUTABLE TO SANGUINEOUS 
CONGESTION. 
By M. Berger, M. V. to the 5th Regiment of French Dragoons. 
The affection of which 1 am about to speak has not only at- 
tacked some of the horses of the regiment, but it raged through 
the stables ; and before that it had affected many horses in the 
town and in the country, and which were constantly its victims 
on account of the delicacy of the organs which it attacked. 
Although we are quartered in the North of France, and it will 
be some time before spring will arrive, nevertheless, we have 
some beautiful days, during which the changing temperature and 
the humid air considerably enfeeble the frame. In the depart- 
ment of Pas-de-Calais, and in the arrondissement of Arras, where 
we are now located, our animals — horses and cattle — are plenti- 
fully supplied with nutritious food, forming a blood rich, plastic, 
and abundant. They are also in nearly the state of idleness in 
which the winter has been passed, and there has been no prepara- 
tion of the horse for the labours he is about to undergo — these 
things have combined to prepare his system for the destructive 
maladies which I am about to describe. 
As to our troop-horses, a confinement to the stable far too long, 
and especially in the narrow boxes in which they are enclosed, 
gives them a gross habit of body, not to be attributed so much to 
the bulk of their food as to its stimulating nature — the activity 
of the digestive organs — the entire want of drain for so long a 
time, whether with regard to some of the natural excretions, or 
the absence of artificial depletion — the occasional partial asphyxia 
under which they labour — from the empoisonment of the air in their 
wretched habitations — an idiosyncracy and peculiar temperament 
which is acquired in those places — all these things unite with 
other foreign causes to prepare for the diseases of which I am 
about to speak. 
Between the 20th of February and the 22d of March in the 
last year, eight draught horses, some in the town and others in 
the country, were suddenly attacked by palsy, and especially 
when they were in the shafts of the carriage which they drew. 
All of them died in a greater or less space of time after the attack, 
but within the compass of six days. Of these eight victims, three 
were seen by us, and the others by M. Mannechez, veterinary 
surgeon of the town, and his colleagues. All of them were stout 
horses, fat, plethoric, and had been previously confined for a 
