THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXXII. 
No. 3/6. 
APRIL, 1859. 
Fourth Series. 
No. 52. 
Communications and Cases. 
EPILEPSY IN THE HORSE. 
By William Camps, M.D., London. 
If I were asked to describe in detail the peculiar and 
especial phenomena commonly observed during a paroxysm 
of epilepsy, or an epileptic fit, as such an attack is usually 
called, when occurring in the human subject, I am not aware 
that I could do so more correctly than in thus narrating to 
you the phenomena that I witnessed one day in the summer 
in another animal, namely, in the horse ; and by doing so, 
you may judge the present communication not to be un¬ 
worthy of record in your Journal. I propose to detail this 
case in the following manner, and will, after having done so, 
make some remarks upon this disease, and more especially 
with a view to comparison of the same as it may exist in man 
and in the horse. 
In the afternoon of a summer’s day I was crossing 
Waterloo-bridge, in the direction towards the Strand, and 
coming in the opposite direction, at an ordinary pace, I 
observed a Hansom cab, containing a gentleman, on his 
way, as I had no doubt, to the Waterloo terminus of the 
South-Eastern Railway. At about the centre of the bridge, 
and close to where I was walking, the horse — one of 
ordinary size and make—uttered a piercing shriek, or sudden 
snorting loud noise, and fell instantly to the ground, as 
though struck down. The driver was pitched head-fore¬ 
most off his seat, and over the head of his cab, and narrowly 
escaped serious hurt; the gentleman, too, was thrown for¬ 
ward, but without damage to his person, for as soon as he 
could alight from the cab he took up his carpet-bag, and 
walked away in the direction of the railway station. The 
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