296 
EXPERIMENTS ON CAMPHOR. 
phor had been given, shewed the same symptoms and the same 
remarkable lesions. 
It is not merely yesterday that we were aware of the altera¬ 
tions which took place in the spinal chord. We read, page 28 
of the Essay on Epizootics, by Dr. Guersent, published at Paris 
in 1815, as follows :— u The examination of the nervous system, 
which has not yet been sufficiently attended to, has particularly 
attracted the attention of M. the Professor Dupuy; and in se¬ 
veral examinations of dead animals made during the epizootic of 
1795, and during that of 1814, he constantly observed the 
following morbid appearances :—the spinal marrow was more in¬ 
jected, and not so soft as in its natural state. The internal mem¬ 
branes were often a little redder, and contained in their duplica- 
tures a large quantity of watery transparent fluid. It was very 
abundant near the lumbar and sacral regions, and the medullary 
substance in these places was so softened, that it was reduced by 
touching to a sort of pulp, so that we might be tempted to be¬ 
lieve it a species of hydrorachis, if we were to j udge only by the 
state of the parts in the dead body. The cellular tissue of the 
lumbar and sacral nerves was generally gorged with a bloody 
serosity, and on the cow observed in 1795, the nervous threads 
were spread over with little black ecchymoses. The brain was 
not so soft as the spinal marrow. It appeared generally to be in 
a natural state; nevertheless, sometimes it was more injected, 
and the internal membrane redder. The ventricles were often 
filled with an abundant serosity, and sometimes of a citrine co¬ 
lour. M. Dupuy observed in one case, that the arachnoid mem¬ 
brane was overspread with little black ecchymoses in the folds 
which this membrane forms among the circumvolutions of the 
brain. He observed the same alteration on the choroid plexus.” 
And a little further on, at page 29, u M. Dupuy has observed, in 
several carcasses, an infiltration of air into the tissue of the lungs. 
The veins at the base of the brain frequently contained air. The 
respiration of these animals was very laboured.” 
We think that if M. Bouley, jun., had seen these passages in 
the Essay of Dr. Guersent, he would not have passed them by 
in silence in his interesting Memoir on the Diseases of the Spinal 
Chord; but M. Bouley was too rich in his own resources to re¬ 
quire the help of a stranger. All that we wish to state now is, 
the priority of claim that we have on this important subject. 
One may be convinced by consulting the accounts rendered of the 
school at Alfort, that, since the period signalized by Guersent, we 
have not ceased to call the attention of veterinarians to the dis¬ 
eases of the spinal marrow. But to return: on considering the 
phenomena which camphor produces on the animal frame, and 
knowing that it causes, in a large dose, instant death, and that 
