GENERAL REMARKS. 479 
knee may be often speedily cured, and the blemish will be comparatively 
trifling. 
THE KNEE Is SOMETIMES punctured by a thorn in hunting, causing great 
pain and lameness. If it can be felt externally, it is well to cut down 
upon it and remove it; but groping in the dark with the knife among 
important tendons in front of the knee is not on any account to be 
attempted. The knee should be well fomented, five or six times a day, 
until the swelling, if there is any, subsides, and, in process of time, the 
thorn will either show its base, or it will gradually free itself from its 
attachments and lie beneath the skin, from which position it may be safely 
extracted with the knife. 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
DISEASES OF THE THORACIC ORGANS AND THEIR APPENDAGES. 
GENERAL REMARKS—CATARRH — INFLUENZA — BRONCHITIS—CHRONIC COUGH—LARYN- 
GITIS— ROARING, WHISTLING, ETC.—PNEUMONIA AND CONGESTION—PLEURISY—PLEU- 
RODYNIA—PHTHISIS —BROKEN WIND—THICK WIND—SPASM OF THE DIAPHRAGM— 
DISEASES OF THE HEART—OF THE BLOOD VESSELS IN THE CHEST AND NOSE. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
THE IMPORTANCE OF SOUNDNESS in the respiratory apparatus is so 
fully recognised, that in common parlance it is put before the organs of 
locomotion, a popular expression being “sound, wind and limb.” It is 
true that good wind is useless without legs ; but the diseases of the latter 
are known to be more under control than those of the chest, and hence it 
is, perhaps, that the wind is so carefully scrutinised by all purchasers of 
horses. There is, also, much greater difficulty in ascertaining the condi- 
tion of the lungs and their appendages, and the ordinary observer can 
only judge of them by an absolute trial ; while the state of the legs may 
be seen and felt, and that of the feet can be tolerably well ascertained by 
a very short run upon hard ground. So, also, with the acute diseases of 
these parts; while the legs and feet manifest the slightest inflammation 
going on in them by swelling and heat, the air-passages may be under- 
going slow but sure destruction, without giving out any sign that can be 
detected by any one but the practised veterinarian. In most of the 
diseases of the chest there is disturbance of the breathing, even during a 
state of rest ; but in some of them, as in roaring, for instance, no such evi- 
dence is afforded, and the disease can only be detected by an examination 
during, or immediately after, a severe gallop. 
CATARRH, OR COLD. 
CaTARRH may be considered under two points of view; either as an 
inflammation of the mucous membrane of the nasal cavities, accompanied 
by slight general fever ; or as an ephemeral fever of three or four days’ 
duration, complicated with this condition of the nose. The latter is, 
perhaps, the more scientific definition, but for common purposes it is 
more convenient to consider it as mainly consisting in the most prominent 
symptom. There is invariably some degree of feverishness, sometimes 
