THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. VllI, No. 93.] SEPTEMBER 1835. [New Series, No. 33 . 
MR. YOUATT’S VETERINARY LECTURES, 
DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. 
LECTURE XLIX. 
Epilepsy in the Horse — Cattle — Sheep—Goats — Pigs — Cats — 
Poultryy and Dogs. 
BELIEVING, to a very considerable extent, the truth of the 
theory—but more because it afforded a simple and intelligible 
illustration of the diseases of the nervous system—I imagined 
that the nervous power, in the healthy state of the constitution, 
was supplied to the muscles of animal life, not in a continuous 
tenour, but in minute and successive jets. The first deviation 
from this. Tetanus, the rushing on of the nervous energy with 
unusual violence, without pause, and in defiance of the will, 
formed the subject of the two last lectures. We sometimes 
witness the same excessive supply of nervous energy, and that 
extended over the greater part of the frame, and independent of 
the will; but there are pauses or suspensions,—there are alternate 
contractions and relaxations— Convulsions, Epilepsy. 
Varieties of Epileptic Disease. —I will not detain you by in¬ 
quiring into the distinction which human pathologists have 
drawn between these two terms, convulsions and epilepsy. I 
do not quite understand it as applied to the human patient; 
and I am quite assured that the symptomatology of quadrupeds 
is not yet sufficiently accurate to justify us in entering into 
these minutiae. By epilepsy in our patients I understand a 
spasmodic contraction of the voluntary muscles, accompanied 
by partial, and generally total loss of consciousness—in its 
idiopathic state often scarcely to be distinguished from apo¬ 
plexy ;• in its connexion with other diseases not deserving a 
stronger name than convulsions. 
VOL. VIII. 3 u 
