468 
H. JAMES. 
CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS IN THE HORSE. 
(Paper read by IT. James, Veterinary Student, Ontario Veterinary College, 
Toronto, at weekly meeting of Veterinary Medical Society.) 
Mr. President and Fellow-Students : 
1 lobably at the present time there is no disease regarded with 
widei-spiead interest by the profession and horse men generally 
of the United States and Canada, than the one known as cerebro¬ 
spinal meningitis. Its very obscurity and ill-understood nature, 
together with the paucity of literature bearing upon the subject, 
have further tended to deepen that interest. Feeling that my 
own experience of the disease was too slight to be of much value, 
and not having much faith in mere theoretical expositions of its 
nature, I corresponded during the past summer with several 
leading American practitioners, who have had long practical ex¬ 
perience of this malady ; and to their replies, given with the 
greatest kindness and courtesy, I am largely indebted for the com¬ 
pilation of my paper. With this preliminary, I will now pro¬ 
Cerebro-spinal meningitis may be defined as a malignant fever 
of the epizootic class, resulting from a specific poison, which pro¬ 
duces exact results, modified in degree in different cases, and 
characterized by profound disturbance of the central nervous 
system. 1 hough this fatal disease has been noted in the human 
race since the beginning of the fourteenth century, it is only dur¬ 
ing the last thirty years that its occurrence in the equine family 
has been brought prominently before the public. Of late years, 
since the attention of the profession has been called to its exist¬ 
ence in the horse, it has been recognized in places far distant 
from the Eastern States of the American Union, to which locality 
the disease was formerly thought to be peculiar. Two years ago 
the English veterinarians first made its acquaintance, though it & is 
said to have been prevalent in Ireland at various times previously, 
and according to some it has been seen in far-off India. Keturn- 
ing to this continent we find that Professor Smith has met with 
the disease on Canadian soil, and Dr. Holcombe, I.V.S.U.S.A., 
