30 
ON NICKING A HORSE'S TAIL. 
quiet. But he evinced much thirst, drank freely, and refused all- 
food. In vain was the death of the patient expected. He seemed 
to mock it. The following morning, June 4th, all the symptoms 
produced by the poison had disappeared; but the animal was 
very weak, and staggered as though injured in the spine; yet to 
the great surprise of all, his restlessness and pain did not return as 
before. On the contrary, having been provided with a good litter, 
he lay down, and lay for several hours as if dead. After he got 
up he would from time to time look at his flanks, but remained 
perfectly quiet. He drank a pailful of gruel, and ate a small 
ration of bruised oats with chaff. The swelling of the tail had 
now somewhat subsided. 
The owner, astonished at this extraordinary case, decided that 
no further attempts should be made to destroy the patient, but 
that every thing should be done to save him, if possible, and con¬ 
sequently left all to Mons. R. The fomentations were resumed, and 
a sort of apparatus (which it is useless here to describe) was 
applied to support the tail. To make the narrative short, the 
swelling was daily becoming reduced; the horse remained per¬ 
fectly quiet; the wound became smaller; anchylosis of the verte¬ 
bral articulation had taken place; only a small ulcer the size of a 
silver grosschen (a sixpence) remained, which it became necessary 
to cauterize, after which it soon closed up, and nothing was to be 
seen but a rather large cicatrix. The whole treatment of this 
extraordinary case lasted fifteen weeks and a half. The horse 
carried his tail well in spite of all, and the hairs which had become 
entirely lost were restored; and he was sold, as a lady’s horse, for 
a large sum. 
It is extraordinary that the poison, consisting, as it did, of an 
ounce and a half of arsenic, and half an ounce of corrosive sub¬ 
limate, should, with other circumstances, have rather contributed 
to cure than to cause death, for which purpose it was given. It 
also shews how large a dose of deadly poison, in a certain state of 
nervous irritation, may be taken into the stomach with impunity; 
and how differently therapeutic agents act on the system in states 
of health and disease. 
Magazin fur die Gesammte Thierheilkunde Berlin. 
