138 
SPASMODIC COLIC IN A HORSE. 
at last culminated in homoeopathy.” Medicine is never 
useful or beneficial, except when it relieves the system from 
an offending cause. It has beyond this no power. The 
recovery comes through the reaction of the system. Medi- 
cine has no mysterious action in curing disease ; so that the 
only true principle is that in which the medication is a fair 
deduction from the actual condition of the system ; and any 
practitioner who prescribes remedies without such indication 
is so far an empiric. 
Messrs. Editors, although this case may not appear extra- 
ordinary to you, yet it was rare here. 1 have never seen but 
one case of the kind before. That was at a distance of 
seventy-five miles from this city, and of its history and 
termination I know nothing. My reasons for giving names 
in these communications are, that I know the Veterinarian is 
read by many in this city, and any comment you may be 
pleased to make will be interesting to the readers of that 
valuable journal. 
Opinion referred to by Mr. Wood. 
“13, Bowdoin Street, Boston; Dec. 21, 1855. 
“ Dear Sir, — On examining, at your request, with the 
microscope, the hair and furfuraceous matter from the horse 
with the peculiar disease of the skin, I found that the hair 
was wanting in the natural bulbous root; and that, instead, 
every hair terminated abruptly in a ragged extremity. The 
bulb and natural point seemed to have disappeared ; the 
portion of the hair immediately above them being left very 
ragged, as if from corrosion. The stem of the hair was 
perfect, and no appearance of any cryptogamic growth was 
observed. The furfuraceous matter clinging to the ends of 
the hairs was dry, scaly epithelium. There certainly was a 
disease of the hair-bulbs,, and this would imply a disease of 
the hair-follicles of the skin, a question which jou can 
decide, and which will aid in determining a proper name for 
the disease. 
“ Y ours truly, 
“ Benjamin S. Shaw. 
“Dr. Wood.” 
[We thank Mr. Wood for the specimen of hair, & c., sent 
with his communication, which is one of much interest. It 
consisted of a mass, six inches long by three inches broad, of 
desquamated cuticle, in large scales piled one upon another 
to the thickness of at least three quarters of an inch. On 
the under surface of it the roots of the hairs projected. 
