LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 735 
upper and back part of the neck and of the head ; the nose a little 
protruded, the ears erect, and the tail carried rather higher than 
usual. On approaching the animal, he is unusually excited, and 
the pulse becomes accelerated from nervous irritability; if you 
attempt to open the mouth the head is violently thrown up, the 
muscles of the eyeball spasmodically contract, drawing it within the 
orbit, and the cartilago nictitans is convulsively protruded. The 
muscles of mastication next become affected, and the action of the 
jaws are either much limited, or they are entirely closed. As the 
disease advances, other sets of muscles become involved with those 
of the back, loins, haunches, and tail. The head and nose are pro¬ 
truded, the nostrils are widely dilated and scarcely move during 
respiration; the angles of the.mouth are drawn up, the eyes are par¬ 
ticularly brilliant and watchful, the eyelids are drawn asunder, the 
muscles of the eyeball are in a state of continual spasm, which 
causes the brow to be partly forced over the eyes, and the counte¬ 
nance altogether lias a most distressing appearance. The bowels 
are said to be obstinately constipated, but I have not always found 
this the case, and I have seen many a one die when the bowels have 
been well opened and when constipation was never a prominent 
symptom, although I do not deny that it is sometimes present. 
The extremities now become stiffened; the animal stands stiffly, 
with his legs straddling widely apart, and should he be urged to 
move, does so as if he had no joints; he is altogether rigid as a board, 
and the tail is erect and has a tremulous motion. 
In almost any stage of the disease the slightest noise will bring on 
a paroxysm of distressing spasm—opening the box door, lifting a 
bucket, the entrance of another person into the box, one step taken 
to approach the animal, the getting hold of his collar, or any attempt 
to touch his mouth or muzzle; indeed, almost any movement he can 
see if taken hurriedly or noisily; and in the stage of the disease I 
have just been describing, the paroxysms are so severe that it is with 
the greatest difficulty he can keep himself from falling, and should 
lie do so he becomes fearfully excited ; one paroxysm follows another 
rapidly: the pulse, rarely much affected in the early stages, is now 
quick, weak, and almost imperceptible; the power to swallow, always 
difficult, is entirely lost; the body is covered with perspiration, and 
the breathing is laborious and increased to the utmost degree. I 
have said before that this was a disease of the voluntary muscles, 
but in the latter stage the involuntary are without doubt affected. 
The scene may close by asphyxia consequent on spasm of the glottis, 
or immobility of the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles, or 
from total exhaustion of the vital powers through excessive nervous 
excitement and want of nutrition, or even sometimes from a 
spasmodic seizure of the heart itself. This disease, in my expe¬ 
rience, has run its course in a single day, and I have known it exist 
for a month and end fatally after all, but the more acute cases 
usually live from four to eight days. 1 have not been able to assign 
any other cause to my idiopathic cases than exposure, and many of 
them I could easily trace to that source ; my traumatic ones have 
