6 
MR, YOUATt’s veterinary LECTURES. 
in the third volume of his “ Treatise on Veterinary Medicine/' 
gives an account of a disease, as he says, ‘‘ very nearly resem¬ 
bling stomach-staggers,” which had proved exceedingly destruc¬ 
tive in the neighbourhood of Swansea, and particularly in the 
mines. One gentleman lost more than a hundred horses in one 
year; and some had lost their whole stock twice in a year. Had 
he, however, attended more to the symptomatology of the dis¬ 
ease (and which, generally speaking, constitutes the excellence 
of his work), he would not have puzzled either himself or his 
readers, by his speculations on its contagiousness or epizootic 
character—circumstances which no one now believes to apper¬ 
tain to staggers. The consideration of this, however, would 
detain me too long; and my present purpose will be answered 
by warning you against being misled by the long account which 
Mr. White here gives of this malady, somewhat resembling,” 
but essentially distinct from, stomach-staggers. 
The Causes of Staggei's continued .—Old horses are more 
subject to staggers than young ones; for the stomach is weak, 
and the food is apt to be retained in it, and to become a source of 
general, and particularly of cerebral, disturbance. The vessels 
of the brain are weakened ; they yield to a force which, in youth 
and health, they would have successfully resisted; and, having 
yielded, they have less power to resume their former energy, and 
once more contract on their contents. 
Horses at grass are occasionally attacked by this disease; but 
they are generally poor, hardly-worked, half-starved animals, 
turned on richer pasture than their impaired digestive organs 
are equal to. Perhaps the weather is also hot, and the sympathy 
of the brain with the undue labour of the stomach is more easily 
excited, and a determination of blood to the brain far more easily 
effected. 
The symptoms of staggers in a horse at grass are somewhat 
singular. The animal cannot easily find a place on which to 
press his head ; but still he is throwing his weight forward, and 
he o'oes on in a straight line, until at length he is often found 
entangled in a hedge, or drowned in a ditch. 
Mr. Percivall gives a very satisfactory illustration of the pro¬ 
duction of staggers in this way. He says, that when his father 
entered the service of the Ordnance (and in which he continued 
more than thirty years, with the highest credit to himself and 
advantage to the service ;—he was one of the most straight¬ 
forward practitioners, and the kindest friend, and the most 
honourable man, I ever knew), it w'as the custom to turn horses, 
which had become low in condition, but still well upon their 
legs, into the marshes, in order to recruit their strength. During 
