242 MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
Old Sollysel, the Equerry to the French king, whose ‘"Com¬ 
plete Horseman” you may read with pleasure and advantage 
too, after you have been well grounded in practice and are able 
to select that which is really valuable (and there is a great deal of 
it in his book) from what is, in the present day, most ludicrously 
absurd, had no notion of tetanus proceeding from wounds. He 
considered it as a kind of rheumatism, brought on sometimes by 
violent exertion,in which they (‘‘the horses”) “ strain and stretch 
the muscles of the neck so as to draw the humours to them ; or 
oftener from cold, for the sudden change stirs the redundant 
humours, and breeds many obstructions that hinder the motion 
of the affected parts, and cause a pain not only in these, but also 
in the neighbouring parts.” Therefore his remedy, next to 
bleeding, is to take a stimulating embrocation, and chafe the 
parts very hard with the hand “ to make the liquor penetrate; 
which will heat the muscles that are cooled and stiffened by 
the defluxion, and so loosen the jaws and supple the neck.” 
Difficult to he accounted for .—Why does not the nerve of the 
immediate part, or those of the neighbouring ones, first take on 
the inflammatory action ? Probably they do. Then whv do 
not the muscular spasms first appear in the neighbourhood of 
the wound ? I will not answer that there are no muscles in the 
immediate neighbourhood, because this would not apply when 
tetanus follows nicking or docking. I can only reply, that 
there is an anastomosis of nervous fibrils all over the frame; 
designed, doubtless, for a good purpose, and possibly to keep up 
an identity of influence everywhere. Whatever portion of the 
nerves of the foot may be injured, there is a connexion and com¬ 
munication between that and the nerve which supplies the most 
distant part, effected partly by means of the spinal chord, more 
effectually probably through the medium of the intercostals, 
and also by endless anastomoses between the different branches 
of the nerves everywhere. 
But this you will tell me is no answer—why select a distant 
part, the nerves of the head and neck ? I can only say, that 
nature seems fond of these distant sympathies, and that, to a 
greater extent than we are aware, and which we do not always 
turn to the account which we might in the treatment of disease. 
I have ever been subject to the sick headache—what is the 
harbinger of its approach ? Cold feet. What the first symptom 
of its preparation to depart? The return of the natural warmth 
of the extremities. I get wet feet; do I suffer from it in my feet 
or legs? no, but I reckon on a fit of the toothache,or a sore 
tliroat on the following day. There is an uninterrupted chain 
of nervous communication through the whole frame, and nature 
