426 CONTRIBUTIONS TO VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
being occupied very much with more important matters. 
Cases of the kind described I should think are pretty fre¬ 
quent ; at least I have met with several in the course of the 
last four or five years. 
In walking along-side a ditch or drain, the animal’s hind 
foot either slips in, or the edge of the bank gives way, and 
the effort at recovery precipitates him into it, the spine lying 
in the far corner, and the legs packed between the body and 
the opposing bank. I have seen horses tumble in this way; 
and should the drain have perpendicular sides, as most of 
them have, it is impossible for him to extricate himself, and 
his continued efforts to do so by and bye completely exhaust 
him, to say nothing of other injuries. There being water in 
the drain makes the matter worse. 
All the cases I have seen occurred in this way, and pre¬ 
sented at first paraplegia, with cold surface and extremities, 
and great depression, followed by corresponding reaction. 
The increasing inflammatory action in the spine is very well 
marked. 
One of the cases I remember very well, and this, as it proved 
fatal, may be more interesting than any of the others. It 
was a chesnut horse of great size, belonging to a farmer on 
Yorkshire Wolds, w T ho met with the accident in the way I 
have said, presenting at first paraplegia, without, how r ever, 
loss of sensation or circulation, total loss of motion, except in 
the head and neck, and latterly also in the spine, with 
partial loss in the fore extremities, the pulse getting harder 
every day. The treatment, antiphlogistic and counter- 
irritant, was unsuccessful, the animal dying, lasting about a 
week. I had him slung up in the field, but the owner inju¬ 
diciously attempted to remove him home, wdiich, after a great 
many falls on the part of the horse, he was unable to do. 
How far this affected the animal’s death I will not say, but a 
post-mortem showed great inflammation of the meninges of the 
spinal chord, and great effusion of serum: I also removed a 
coagulum of blood, about a foot and a half long, from the 
spinal canal; at what period this coagulum was effused I 
cannot determine, but I should think not at first. Another 
case, a grey brood mare, belonging to Mr. Scott, White- 
wall Corner, occurred the same way as the other, but was 
not by any means so serious a case ; nevertheless, the injury 
to the spine was very apparent. This case did well. Stimu¬ 
lants are quite inadmissible at first, for the same reason 
that we do not put a half frozen man near the fire, or give him 
hot brandy and water. 
The “ Veterinary Student” says nothing about the spine in 
