CHOREA. 
609 
found all tliese at other times without anything like chorea. In 
no case of chorea have 1 observed the ossific deposits on the 
arachnoid membrane, or the calcareous concretions in either of the 
hemispheres of the brain, or the irregularities or spiculae of the 
inner table of the cranium, nor the inflammation of the substance 
of the brain, or inflammation of the spinal chord, or serous effu¬ 
sion in the spinal cavity, described by medical writers. In short, 
I have not seen any altered structure that could satisfactorily 
account for the disease. As for morbid appearances about the 
heart, the lungs, the pericardium, the pleura, &c., I have always 
set them down to another account. 
Cause .—This disease is evidently one of debility, and either 
the distribution of nervous power is irregular, or the muscles have 
lost their capacity of being readily acted upon, or have acquired 
a morbid irritability. The latter is the probable state. In pro¬ 
portion to their exhaustion is their mobility—their loss of power 
to oppose a degree of tone and firmness to the influence applied to 
them—and their action becomes irregular and spasmodic. It re¬ 
sembles the convulsions of expiring nature, and not the more quiet 
and uniform action of health. It is not the chorea which used 
to be described by old authors, in which there was an irresistible 
mental impulse to excessive action, and which was best combated 
by complete muscular exhaustion ; musicians being hired, and 
dancers hired, and the patient dancing on—one woman, with a 
few short intervals of sleep, footing it away for a whole month : 
the foundation of the disease which we have to treat in our 
quadruped patients is debility. 
Treatment .—The term debility suggests the proper mode of 
treatment here: no bleeding, no excessive purgation ; but ape¬ 
rients or alteratives, sufficient to keep the faeces in a pultaceous 
state, so as to carry off any source of irritation in the intestinal 
canal, and gradually to expel the tape-worm, or the teres, too 
frequent sources of irritation there. To these should be added, 
general comfort, nutritious food, gentle exercise, and tonic me¬ 
dicine. The treatment will be complete if, the dog being in 
tolerable condition, a counter-irritant is resorted to, and applied 
as near as possible to the common sensorium; a seton extending 
across the poll from ear to ear, and duly stimulated with turpen¬ 
tine or tincture of cantharides. I have used all other external 
stimulants, and without avail; moxa, and the heated iron to the 
head, and acupuncturation to the limb, have succeeded each 
other until I was tired and ashamed; and from neither of them 
have I seen the slightest beneficial result, but now and then a 
rapid and fearful increase of irritability. Antispasmodics are of 
no earthly use : narcotics are powerless. As tonics, the iron and 
VOL, VIII. 4 o 
