IN THE HORSE. 
125 
“ IV. The compression of the cerebral substance produced by the .dropsy of 
the venticles, had then suspended the hematosis, in torpifying the action of 
the heart and lungs, and the animal died suffocated—in a state of asphyxia, 
as dissection plainly showed.^^ 
Of the Cranium, The lateral ventricles and other cavities 
of the brain distended with a limpid serous fluid. The plexus 
choroides pale, pervaded by a gelatinous substance, and spotted 
with small tubercles. Medullary matter pale and to appearance 
soaked through with serocity. 
It would appear then, in the first place, that this horse, prior 
to the development of the acute cerebral and visceral iiTitation, 
was affected with a chronic inflammation of the liver and morbid 
irritation of the arachnoid and brain, which was attended with 
serous effusion into the ventricles; and, in the second place, 
that the acute irritation ulteriorly manifested in the brain, did 
not run on to inflammation, but was confined to the production 
of a morbid excitation, and to the determination of an aug¬ 
mented exhalation of serocity into the ventricles; a deduction 
appearing still more plausible when one lays due stress upon the 
remission of the symptoms. 
‘‘ V. We have already said (in Annot. III.p. 124.) that these remissions are 
as common in acute as in chronic cerebral affections: therefore we have no right 
to draw any inference of the real character of the disease from this, nor, for the 
same reason, come to any conclusion from such a circumstance alone, whe¬ 
ther it exists in that form or not.’^ 
* The animal, the year before, had suffered severely from in¬ 
flammation of one of the hind fetlocks, from injury, from which 
arose spasms and febrile re-action, the inflammation ending in 
ulceration and anchylosis. At the same time, the opposite limb 
took on chronic inflammations of the hip-joint and foot from the 
additional burden thrown upon it. These inflammatory and 
painful disorders, relapsing for several months, transmitted to 
the nervous centre, gave rise within the brain and its mem¬ 
branes to an anormal and inordinate excitation, which was fol¬ 
lowed by more or less serous exhalation, principally into the 
lateral ventricles ; at the same time, it created morbid irritation 
in the digestive apparatus, which proved the cause of the chronic 
inflammation pervading the alimentary canal. For some time 
the horse had been dull, manifesting a sort of stupor, and was 
little disposed to move about. 
The exacerbation of the malady, and its transition from its 
primitive state of sluggishness into the acute form of cerebral 
irritation, which was so promptly succeeded by the fatal effusion, 
may be ascribed to the morbid influence of the season and the 
co-existence of lesions within the alimentary canal. The pre¬ 
sence of the fluke worms was remarkable : they probably owed 
