PARALYSIS OF THE TONGUE. 
19 
declared to prepare the animal for the butcher. Such animals fatten 
most readily on distillers’ and brewers’ grains, which make only slight 
demands on their masticating powers. 
(D) PARALYSIS OP THE TONGUE (GLOSSOPLEGIA). 
Inflammatory processes may interfere with the movements of the 
tongue; but its paralysis depends on injury to the hypoglossal nerve, 
which supplies with motor filaments the collective muscles of the tongue, 
and most of those of the hyoid bone. 
Wounds, abscesses, or inflammatory processes may affect the nerve at 
some point of its course, or at its origin on the inferior surface of the 
medulla, and thus produce glossoplegia. Kater saw one-sided paralysis 
occur in a foal which three months before had been wounded in the 
throat with a knife. On the left side the muscles of the tongue had so 
completely disappeared that at that point the upper and lower coverings 
of mucous membrane were in contact. In the case of a horse which had 
first suffered from left-sided, and afterwards from general paralysis of 
the tongue, Hallander discovered on the left side of the medulla a sar¬ 
coma which had originated in the guttural pouch. This paralysis is also 
seen during severe infections, like contagious pleuro-pneumonia of the 
horse (see Cadiot and Hollar’s “ Clinical Yet. Med. and Surgery,” p. 185), 
In central paralysis both nerves usually suffer, and, of course, both sides 
of the tongue, for the two hypoglossal nerves arise very close together. 
In the horse paralysis of the tongue sometimes accompanies acute 
meningitis or hydrocephalus. But every case of double-sided paralysis is 
not necessarily central. Diplegia occurs in horses whose tongues have 
been roughly handled, and where both nerves have been injured. In dogs 
double-sided paralysis is regularly observed during rabies, but it also 
appears without any preceding illness, and is sometimes accompanied 
by masticatory facial paralysis. Here the cause is probably central. 
A somewhat similar paralysis of the tongue in a dog, accompanied by 
rather extensive disease of the brain, is thus described by Frick : 
The dog, which was about five to six years old, usually stood with its back 
arched, and with the limbs drawn under the body; there was general 
quivering of the entire surface. The eyes were cloudy and watery ; tears 
ran over the cheeks and fluid from the nostrils. Long threads of tenacious 
saliva hung from the mouth. There was a weak, rather frequent, cough. 
The rectal temperature was 103-2° F. Examination of the cavity of the mouth 
showed that about 1 to 1 \ inches of the free end of the tongue was relaxed 
and incapable of voluntary movement. When the affected part was thrust 
backwards the animal could not return it to its normal position. The soft 
palate hung flaccid and was not under control. Food was fairly well taken 
and swallowed. The animal eagerly took water, which, however, at once ran 
out of its mouth again. To overcome this difficulty a rubber tube was passed 
into the oesophagus, and water administered by pouring it into a funnel 
c 2 
