EPILEPSY IN THE SWINE. 487 
likely to be influenced by the various causes which tend to pro¬ 
duce derangement in the nervous system. 
SWINE. 
These animals occasionally exhibit all the frightful appearances 
of epilepsy in full perfection. One, in a herd of them, or in a 
stye with a few companions, falls suddenly—as suddenly as if 
struck by lightning, and he lies a minute or two motionless. 
Then convulsions commence—increase—become dreadful to see ; 
the countenance is distorted, and the neck bent in a dreadful 
way; the cries are painful to hear; and another and another is 
seized in the same way: at length they become exhausted and 
quiet; they get up—try to hide themselves in the litter, or in 
the corner of the stye—look suspiciously around, until, con¬ 
sidering all that has passed as a fearful dream, they creep 
forward, and begin again to eat. 
A Case. —Let Mr. Cartwright, to whom we owe much for his 
application of the veterinary art to inferior animals, describe a 
case which occurred to him:—In 1825 he saw a pig that was 
taken ill in the following manner. The animal was a little stupid 
and dull, and wandered about the stye unconsciously for a few 
minutes, and would then appear to be quite well; but a few days 
afterwards he became worse. He would move forwards until he 
came to the wall, and then backwards until he came to another 
wall, grunting and squealing all the time; then he would fall, 
and tumble about, and squeal hideously, being all the while evi¬ 
dently blind, and unconscious of surrounding objects; and this 
would continue until he was perfectly exhausted. These fits 
became more and more frequent, until they occurred almost every 
quarter of an hour.” Mr. Cartwright bled him,and kept his head 
wet with cold water, and gave him salts and calomel, and he re¬ 
covered ; but five or six others died of the same complaint in the 
same neighbourhood. 
Explanation of its prevalence among Swine. —He who has 
watched the habits of swine when not confined in the stye can 
easily believe that they are more imaginative than common 
opinion supposes them to be. The manner in which they are 
affected on the approach of a storm—the singular way in which 
a dozen or more of them will run about in an apparently frantic 
state, with straw in their mouths, and uttering the loudest cries— 
the mingled sympathy and terror which the whole herd exhibits 
when one of them is undergoing the operation of spaying, or of 
ringing—these are sufficient indications of a susceptibility of im¬ 
pression which may not unfrequently subject them to the attack 
of epilepsy. 
