48-2 
MR. YOUATt’s veterinary LECTURES. 
THE HORSE. 
Siimptoms. —I commence with our chief patient, the horse. 
I take him out apparently well. On a sudden he is heedless of 
the rein or of the whip. He stops—trembles—looks vacantly 
around him, and falls. Every limb begins to be convulsed ; the 
teeth are ground together, or firmly clenched ; the nostrils are 
dilated ; the eye seems almost ready to start from its orbit—it 
revolves in a most singular and frightful manner. The contor¬ 
tions of the lips, and the altered expression and momentary 
changing of the countenance, once having been observed, will 
not be readily forgotten. The head and the neck are always 
violently, and occasionally the whole frame is fearfully, con¬ 
vulsed. 
Progress. —This lasts during an uncertain period. Some pa¬ 
tients have died in the fit; but usually, after five or ten minutes, 
the convulsions begin to abate—they cease; consciousness re¬ 
turns—the animal gets up—he looks about him with a kind of 
stupid astonishment—he cannot understand what has occurred. 
By degrees his recollection returns—he gives himself a hearty 
shake—he urines, and he proceeds on his journey with much 
diminished alacrity and power; or, if he has opportunity, he 
falls to eating, although not with his usual appetite. It is 
somewhat difficult here to draw the line between apoplexy in its 
mildest form—megrims—and true epilepsy. There has been a 
degree of determination of blood to the head, which has seri¬ 
ously deranged the secretion or the distribution of the nervous 
energy over the whole of the animal system. 
Causes. —Although the horse is our most valuable patient, 
and will occupy the greatest share of our attention, I cannot 
tell you the premonitory symptoms of epilepsy in him : in the 
majority of cases I believe that they are few and evanescent. 
Fortunately, cases of epilepsy in the horse come not often un¬ 
der our notice; and when they do occur, it is more frequently in 
the perfect colt or horse than in the gelding or the mare. A 
case of asthenic epilepsy, or arising from defective powder or 
action, has not fallen under my observation, nor have I found it 
recorded ; there has, on the contrary, been fulness of blood, 
excited action, or local irritation. Almost always there has been 
increased and disturbed circulation, and this accompanied by or 
connected with disease or a temporary derangement of the di¬ 
gestive organs. In the human being it is often allied with in¬ 
sanity ; in the quadruped it is still oftener complicated with 
apoplexy. 
Case, —M. Dubuisson relates a case similar to those which 
