REVIEW. 
445 
we have been able to collect, in favour of the doctrine that 
efforts to vomit can be excited in the horse by injecting 
tartar emetic into its veins, may be thus briefly summed up: 
1. M. Lecoq and his colleagues (the veterinary professors 
of Lyons) have expressed an opinion in the affirmative, without 
publishing the grounds of their belief. 
2. The experiment of MM. Leblanc and Mignon, which 
professes to prove the doctrine, appears to have been con¬ 
ducted with so little regard to the exclusion of sources of 
error, that it would be unwarrantable to draw any positive 
inferences from it. 
3. As we are not acquainted with the details of the experi¬ 
ments which formed the basis of M. Dupuy’s statement in 
support of the above doctrine, they need confirmation; a need 
which becomes imperative, on reflection that the horse is not 
susceptible of emesis by the introduction of any medicinal 
substance into the stomach, and that as our knowledge of 
the action of emetics in the dog proves, that when introduced 
into the veins or into the stomach their effects differ in degree 
and not in kind, there is strong ground for the belief that the 
horse is unsusceptible of the specific action of emetics, even 
when directly injected into its circulating system. 
In order to settle the question, I determined to appeal to 
experiment, and procured for the purpose a horse and a 
mule, both of sound constitution. I have injected into their 
jugular veins solutions of tartar emetic, in 5, 30, and 50 
grain doses, but have never seen efforts to vomit; to avoid 
misunderstanding I may say, that I have never seen any 
such thing as the animals thus experimented on take a deep 
inspiration, fix the chest, and make sudden and forcible 
exertion with the abdominal muscles. Inasmuch, however, 
as I noticed some preternatural phenomena of muscular 
action in two of the experiments, a detailed account of them 
is rendered necessary. Twenty minutes after injecting into 
the left jugular vein of a horse thirty grains of tartar emetic, 
dissolved in three ounces of water, the muscles generally 
became rigid; but there was no movement caused by any of 
them. It was static, not dynamic contraction. After this, 
I noticed a good deal of twitching of the muscles of the fore 
and hind limbs, and of those of the lower part of the neck; 
but the abdominal muscles acted evenly, though with more 
frequency than usual, as the respiration became a good deal 
accelerated. At the end of three hours the twitching had 
almost ceased; and had done so completely, and the animal 
had resumed eating in a little less than four hours. Lest it 
should be feared that I misconstrued the phenomena of 
vol. xxv. 3o 
