THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. VllI, No. 96.] DECEMBER 1835. [New Series, No. 36. 
MR. YOUATT’S LECTURES ON VETERINARY MEDICINE 
AND ANIMAL PATHOLOGY; 
DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. 
LECTURE LI. 
Palsy in the Horse. 
DEFINITION. —Having considered the various diseases 
which are referrible to an unnaturally increased supply of nervous 
agency—whether considered as flowing in a continuous rapid 
stream, and to many muscles or sets of muscles, as in Tetanus — 
or still flowing rapidly, and to many parts, but with certain re¬ 
missions or pauses, as in Epilepsy —or the stream, although con¬ 
tinuous and rapid, confined to one muscle or set of muscles, as 
in Cramp —or passing on in a succession of waves or impulses, 
as in Chorea —and all these perfectly independent of the will; or 
some involuntary impulse being added to and interfering with 
strict obedience to the mandate of the will, as in Stringhalt, —we 
proceed to maladies of a different character, and connected with 
the partial or total suspension of nervous influence, as in Palsy. 
Strictly speaking, palsy means a diminution or a suspension of 
the influence of the nervous system whether sensitive or motor— 
a loss or diminution of feeling, as well as of the power of action ; 
but as 1 have, hitherto, been speaking only of the inferior super¬ 
ficies of the spinal chord and the motor columns, my attention 
will, at present, be confined to the diminution of action, and 
that as resulting not from various mechanical causes, as the 
contraction of tendons, or the ossification of ligaments, but the 
want of nervous energy—a disease, not of the })art to be stimu¬ 
lated, but a partial or total absence of the stimulus. 
Every action implies two things—the stimulus, and the ])Ower 
of being stimulated : the irritability—the symptom, the essence 
of animal and organic life—wc suppose in every case to remain ; 
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