560 
W. L. WILLIAMS. 
my personal experience, and although some of my cases oc¬ 
curred about eight years since, most of them are of recent 
date. 
My first cases were widely separated, and my observations 
extending over only a very brief part of the full course of the 
disease, only a small part of the entire train of phenomena of 
the malady were noted, so that 1 failed to connect the indi¬ 
vidual cases as all belonging to one group, depending upon 
one cause. Regarding them as isolated cases, which might 
never recur, and being wholly at sea as to a proper diagnosis, 
notes were not taken, and so I must trust to memory for what 
I wish to say. 
More recently a hurried succession of cases presented 
themselves so forcibly and distinctively that some solution for 
their existence was demanded, but before any definite line of 
thought had been acquired, my cases were all gone, and what 
might have been a very interesting field for careful study had 
vanished. 
Awaiting the return of such favorable opportunity for a 
more complete studjq I shall venture to lay before you such 
observations and conclusions as circumstances warrant, trust¬ 
ing thereby to awaken an interest in this undescribed malady 
and lead some of you to make and record more definite and 
valuable deductions regarding it. 
My first case occurred some eight years ago, in an adult 
grade draft mare, which had at her side a healthy, vigorous 
foal, some ten to twenty days old. The mare had foaled 
naturally and easily at the ordinary time, and the very appar¬ 
ent vigor of the foal showed clearly that she had been furnish¬ 
ing an abundant supply of milk. The owner reported that a 
few hours prior to my arrival the mare suddenly became 
strangely nervous, assuming a wild look, with staring eyes, 
restlessness, stiffness of gait, twitching of the muscles, occa¬ 
sionally lying down and getting up, the symptoms all rapidly 
increasing, until she lay prostrate on her side, unable to rise. 
In this position 1 found her, the whole muscular system ex¬ 
ceedingly rigid, breathing labored, convulsions constant, 
pupils greatly dilated, mucous membranes livid, firm trismus, 
