“It has been asserted that attacks of paralysis have been mistaken for kennel lameness. How such mistakes can have originated with any persons conversant with the characteristics of the latter malady, it is difficult to conceive, unless that term is intended to comprehend all disorders in which lameness is apparent. If so, ere long, we shall have hounds, when lamed by thorns or bruises, included in the list. Kennel lameness, properly so termed, is intended to convey the idea of a malady whose distinctive symptoms are so identically similar to rheumatism, that there appears scarcely any visible reason why it should be distinguished by any other term; but as it has now acquired a standing in the huntsman’s nomenclature, it would be presumption to attempt to displace it: nevertheless, the term rheumatism would be quite as applicable and more universally comprehended. Before a physiologist pronounces to what class a disorder belongs, and before a physician attempts to prescribe a remedy for its cure, it is requisite to investigate the symptoms which exist. Now the symptoms of paralysis and rheumatism are so distinctly at variance, that it is utterly impossible to fall under a mistake. Paralysis is a nervous affection, in which the nerves, acting on the muscles, interrupt their motion, relaxing their tone and fibre, and very frequently distorting some particular limb. Rheumatism is a rigid or contracted state of the muscles, attended with a slight inflammatory condition of the tissue which covers the muscles, having the effect, when the animal has been some time at rest, of creating a certain degree of adhesion. Thus a hound badly affected with kennel lameness, on first being taken out, is so stiff and sore as scarcely to be able to move--a state in which I have seen so many, that the remembrance is accompanied with feelings of commiseration and pity that would prompt me to any trouble or exertion that would produce the effect of subduing the complaint. When hounds thus disordered have been in motion a short time, so as to increase the circulation of the blood, the extreme rigidity or stiffness goes off to a certain extent, dependent upon the violence of the attack. But paralytic affections would not be attended with any such results: exercise would rather tend to increase than to improve the capabilities of action.