EDITORIAL REMARKS ON MEGRIMS 57 
[ The following remarks would have appeared in December had 
there been room for them .] 
In reference to the opinions of Mr. Broad on the somewhat 
mysterious subject of “ megrims/’ as expressed in The Veteri¬ 
narian for November, supported as they are on one side by 
Mr. Woodger, and questioned as they are on another side by 
Mr. Baker—whose communication will be found in our Number 
for last month—it seems to us that, in both accounts, views too 
restrictive have been taken of the etiology of a disease fami¬ 
liarly known to veterinarians and others under an appellation 
which really is significant of no more than a striking symptom 
exhibited by it, or rather, we would say, of its diagnostic symptom. 
That megrims occurs more frequently in harness horses—much 
more frequently than in others—Messrs. Broad and Woodger’s 
observations, extending as they do over a series of years, in com¬ 
bination with those of others, we are of opinion, leave little room 
for doubt; but that horses that go in harness are the exclusive 
subjects of the disease, our own experience denies. 
Between drawing and riding hardly a better contrast could be 
adduced than the examples afforded by horses employed in cab 
and omnibus and carriage work, and those of our cavalry. In one 
situation the horses are never out of harness, in the other they are 
never in. Therefore it follows that, if either the harness collar or 
the bearing-rein be the occasion of megrims, cavalry horses ought 
to be entirely exempt from such a disease. And to a very great 
extent they are so; but not in toto, as the following case, which 
occurred under our own immediate observation, will, we think, most 
satisfactorily go to prove. 
In the year 1832 was recruited by the First Life Guards a very 
handsome three-year-old grey mare, who for the first half-a-dozen 
years of her servitude ailed nothing to be complained of. Subse¬ 
quently, however, she evinced a good deal of shyness, on occa¬ 
sions, about her head; was averse to having it handled or cleaned; 
and acquired the habit of “ weaving” in her stall. This was suc¬ 
ceeded by regular fits of megrims: she would, when ridden, at 
times, throw up her head in the way megrimed horses do, become 
dizzy and vertiginous, stop and stagger and reel round, and more 
than once has, in her fit, been near falling backward with her rider. 
VOL. XXII. I 
