ON TETANUS. 
Go 
and on the report of which we cannot at all times rely. In the 
human subject it is very different: if a person feels pain in the 
stomach, bowels, or any other part of the frame, it is immediately 
pointed out to the medical attendant, who can at once attack the 
disease in its head-quarters ; but the veterinary practitioner is 
and must be chiefly dependent for information on persons, too 
often either devoid of common observation, or obstinately de¬ 
termined to keep him in the dark. I apprehend the effect of 
visceral derangement on the nervous system in many cases, as in 
some which I shall relate, may be so sudden and peculiar, that 
the animal, although he may be experiencing most acute pain, is 
prevented expressing it in the usual and recognizable way. 
I shall now mention two or three cases as examples, but shall 
not enter into the minutiae of treatment, as I am relating them 
principally from memory. 
The first case was that of a carriage horse that I was called to 
in the morning, and told he was left perfectly well on the previous 
evening. He had all the usual appearances of tetanus; and al¬ 
though I examined him as minutely as possible, and finding he 
had been out the day before, I had all his shoes taken off, to ascer¬ 
tain if he had received any injury in the feet, I could not arrive 
at any circumstance to lead me to a probable cause. I bled co¬ 
piously ; gave aloes and calomel, with frequent clysters. The 
horse was excessively irritable, became rapidly worse, and died 
in about thirty hours. On opening him I found the stomach un¬ 
usually distended with food, and an increased redness on its sur¬ 
face, with several crimson spots on the pyloric portion. The 
duodenum and jejunum were much inflamed, and the lungs 
gorged with blood. That, however, which attracted my attention 
more particularly was, the unusually vascular appearance of the 
large sympathetic nerves throughout their various ramifications in 
the chest and abdomen. 
Another case I accidentally saw at the slaughter-house of a 
horse that had died of tetanus, and which disease, as I understood, 
could not be accounted for by any external symptoms. The 
owner, who was present, was very anxious I should examine him, 
which I accordingly did, and found the stomach much diseased 
in consequence of its containing an enormous quantity of bots, 
several of which had eaten through its coats, and were adhering 
to the outside. The sympathetic nerves in this case were similar 
in appearance to those in the former one, more particularly the 
branches surrounding the stomach. The owner of this horse 
assured me that the animal had never shewn any symptoms of 
sickness further than dulness and loss of appetite. lie was a 
