ON THE CASTRATION OF COLTS. 
205 
suffered excruciating pain. On Nov. 3rd, thirty needles, and on 
the 13th, thirty; and on Dec. 10th thirty more were used. The 
lameness then began to abate, and on the 10th of Jan. 1827, 
the horse was sound.- 
M. Bouley plunged twenty-four needles into the muscles of 
the loins of a horse whose hinder extremities were paralysed. 
No good effect was produced. 
On the whole these experiments have been very unsatisfac¬ 
tory. One case of chorea in the dog was cured by acupunc- 
turation, and another relieved. The attempt to reduce a schirrous 
testicle utterly failed. Two cases of supposed rheumatism were 
cured, but not in so short a time as that in which we generally 
succeed in removing a rheumatic affection by other means. In 
strain of the extensor muscles of the fore-arm, M. Clichy labour¬ 
ed hard for nearly three months, and although, at last, the 
lameness was removed, the cure is to be traced to the state 
of rest in which the animal was suffered to remain so long, 
more than to the influence of the needles. In paralysis of the 
hinder extremities, acupuncturation was totally useless. 
From so few facts however we cannot draw any satisfactory 
conclusion. Two things however are sufficiently evident, that 
the sudden and magical relief which the human being has some¬ 
times experienced has not been seen in the horse; and that, 
probably from the thickness of the integument, the animals suf¬ 
fered extreme torture during the insertion of the needles. 
Those veterinarians who practice on so humble an animal as 
the dog, will, perhaps, try the effect of acupuncturation in that 
nervous affection which so much resembles the St. Vitus’s Dance 
in the human being. Rheumatic affections, especially if ac¬ 
companied by considerable spasmodic action, and which have 
then occasionally puzzled our most skilful practitioners, are fair 
cases for experiment; and I do trust that some zealous veteri¬ 
narian will put the use of the needle fairly to the test, in that 
most dreadful and untractable disease, tetanus. 
W—. 
ON THE CASTRATION OF COLTS. 
To the Editor of the Veterinarian, 
A RETIRED officer of the Indian cavalry, who has for some 
