736 LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
supervened on taking away lampas, nicking, wounds, and pricks of 
the feet, docking where the haemorrhage had been stopped by the 
ligature, broken knees, scalds on the back, wounds both slight and 
extensive, particularly about the flank, belly, and joints; and I had 
one case from extensive punctured wounds caused by the teeth of a 
harrow on the hips. I have often heard of it following castration, 
but have had the good fortune to escape it so far in my own practice. 
Punctured and lacerated wounds are debited with most of my 
cases, and the application of some irritating astringent to them has 
in my belief been one of the exciting causes. The nerves at and 
leading from the injured part sometimes show increased vascularity 
and enlargement. On the other hand, cases are met with where all 
traces of disease either in the nerves or spinal cord are entirely 
wanting. The morbid appearances found after death are far from 
uniform in their nature. The brain is usually free from disease. 
The spinal cord generally manifests congestion, both in itself and its 
membranes, and I have thought sometimes that the amount of 
serum was preternaturally increased. The lungs are congested, 
there is unusual vascularity of the air-passages and of the pharynx, 
oesophagus, and stomach, and the mucous coat of the bowels is 
often inflamed. I made a very careful post-mortem examination of 
a case lately. The lungs were congested, and the mucous coat of 
the bowels slightly inflamed. The brain was perfectly healthy, and 
the spinal cord seemed to be darkened in colour and much con¬ 
gested about the loins, otherwise it was healthy. Some .authors 
look upon this disease as simply a form of meningitis or myelitis ; 
but inflammation of an organ seldom leads to such an excess of 
function, hence one of the most common results of indammation 
within the spine is paralysis. Dissection sometimes, but not always, 
exhibits an injected state of the spinal meninges, and to a certain 
extent of the nervous substance, hut this is only congestion, not 
inflammation. It is in all probability the result and not the cause, 
and I believe the usual state in which the lungs and bowels are 
found is fully accounted for in the same way. It appears to me 
that the phenomena, as well during life as after death, are best 
explained upon the supposition that the disease is a mere irritation 
of the spinal marrow and medulla oblongata. This irritation may be 
propagated from the injured extremities of the nerves, as in wounds, 
or from other sources of excessive irritation, such as the intestinal 
mucous membrane ; or it may originate in the spinal marrow itself, 
through causes acting on that structure, such as cold or rheumatic 
influence. In all the course of my experience of this disease up to 
the year 1857, I had only succeeded in saving one. It was a four- 
year-old colt, the property of John Richardson, of Heaton Cottage, 
and the case was a traumatic one, being the result of a torn wound 
in the flank. I well remember nearly fighting the poor wretch to 
death in my endeavour to get a dose of physic down his throat. I 
gave him large doses of calomel and tartar emetic twice a day. This 
treatment was tried often afterwards without success, and indeed 
both before and after I had bled, blistered, physicked, applied sheep- 
