604 
MR. YOUATTS VETERINARY LECTURES. 
affected with stringhalt (I believe only the one examined by this 
gentleman) have exhibited the slightest appearance of melanosis. 
Ganglionic Enlargement of the Nerve. —I once thought that I 
had discovered the cause of stringhalt. In dissecting a horse 
that had exhibited this singular nervous affection, I found an 
evident enlargement of a ganglion on one of the branches of the 
crural nerve, which, passing between the rectus and the vasti, 
supply them with nervous influence: and when I considered the 
connexion of the same nerve with the psoas magnus and the 
iliacus, I was the more disposed to think that this ganglion was 
connected with, or was the cause of the stringhalt. The next, 
and the only other horse which I dissected that had had stringhalt, 
presented a ganglionic enlargement of the sciatic nerve, bestow¬ 
ing influence on the gastrocnemii above, and the flexor metatarsi, 
and the extensor pedis below. Although I was thus driven from 
the crural nerve, I was more convinced that the aflection was 
connected with a ganglionic enlargement of some one of the 
nerves of the hind leg; but I could not meet with any one who 
had seen these ganglionic enlargements of the nerves; 1 con¬ 
versed with one and another of my pupils, when they paid me 
an occasional visit, and who had complied with my request to 
search into this matter, and not one of them had met with a 
ganglion ; and I began to suspect that I was mistaken, and, in 
fact, knew nothing at all about the cause of stringhalt. 
In a discussion, in 1829, in the Veterinary Medical Society 
(now, I am sorry to say, defunct, for it was an honour and a be¬ 
nefit to the profession), a gentleman, whom all his brethren 
highly respect, Mr. Field, gave it as his opinion, that the pre¬ 
vailing cause of stringhalt was idleness. To a certain extent I 
believe him to be perfectly right. From the long holiday of the 
flexors during the standing of the horse in idleness, and the 
shorter one of the extensors during sleep, I can well conceive 
that there may be a disproportionate accumulation of nervous 
irritability in one or the other of these two systems, the extensors 
and the flexors, and occasional cramp would be produced ; but 
not this singular, unnatural, and habitual affection ofoneorboth 
legs. Nor can I conceive that any of the antics in which these 
animals, from want of something else to do, frequently indulge 
themselves, could produce or degenerate into so strange a distor¬ 
tion of action as this. The origin, however, of this disease, and 
the antecedent circumstances, have not been sufficiently noticed 
and recorded. 
Fracture of the Spine, or Injury of the Spinal Chord. —My 
talented friend, Mr. Percivall, is disposed to refer the seat of 
