520 
LOCAL PALSY IN THREE HORSES. 
ties not so weak; and made him take a little exercise in the 
yard. A few days afterwards he was so evidently better, that, 
notwithstanding the weakness of the loins, I regarded my patient 
as almost convalescent, and that only time and care were wanting 
to complete the cure. I therefore sent him home to his master, 
a distance of about four miles and a half, which he walked with¬ 
out resting. The following is the course which I advised them 
to pursue :—to make use of dry frictions on the loins several times 
a-day; to exercise him; now and then to give him a clyster; 
and by degrees to augment his rations. The animal continued 
every day to improve, and on the twenty-seventh day returned 
to his ordinary work. From that time to this he has had no re¬ 
turn of paralysis. 
What are the causes of this paralysis? The animals that were 
attacked by it presented only the very common condition of the 
continued use of too much food, and that often unwholesome. 
All three of them were good feeders, and had the ordinary ra¬ 
tions of other horses; and, perhaps, between the proper feed¬ 
ing hours they had bad fodder or mouldy or rotten peas or 
vetches. Might not the irritation of the essential organs, those 
of digestion, have some sympathetic influence ? The numerous 
communications of the great sympathetic nerve with those which 
are distributed through the paralysed muscles seem to authorize 
this supposition. 
I should very much wish to be able to add to the foregoing re¬ 
marks those which would result from a careful post-mortem ex¬ 
amination. These confirmations are wanting, since all three ani¬ 
mals were cured, although with a very striking difference in the 
duration of the disease. The first horse was not able to begin 
his work until after the seventy-ninth day; the second not until 
the sixty-first; and the third could go to his work on the twenty- 
seventh day. What was the reason of this? Ought it to be at¬ 
tributed to some difference in the degree of paralysis, or to a dif¬ 
ference of treatment, and especially to acupuncturation, which 
ought to have been performed earlier in the first two cases ? I 
shall limit myself to these reflections. Other facts will, perhaps, 
appear to diminish the doubts which have arisen with respect to 
these really important cases. 
Journal de Med. Vet. et Comp. 
