Exercise. 273 



subjected to very severe etetcise; for experience' has shewn, that all 

 Horses will lay down and rest themselves more readily in loose stalls, 

 than in the ordinary narrow ones, which cramp the motions of all 

 their limbs. And if it be the fact, that loose stalls are so advantage- 

 ous to Horses that are in health, how much more so must this be the 

 case, to such as labour under that feverish lassitude^ which uniformly 

 takes place, more or less, after severe exercise of every kind. And 

 as I am now discussing the effects of severe exercise upon Horses, 

 I will venture upon a little digression from the main point, in order 

 to glance at a popular error, connected with this subject. For. 

 nothing is more common, than to hear people attempt to account for 

 the issue, of the vast muscular exertions which Horses are often 

 obliged to perform, by placing it to the account of the superiority, or 

 inferiority of the animal's wind ; and I have heard many well informed 

 people speak as if they considered, that the state or structure of the 

 lungs alone, decided the point. But the truth is, the lungs are by no 

 means actively concerned in the affair, unless, indeed, they be in a state 

 of positive disease. For it is the tired and debilitated state of the dia- 

 phragm, and of those muscles, which lying between the ribs, expand 

 and contract the chest, that occasions a Horse to be blown, as the 

 phrase is, and sometimes to stop suddenly. Now though this exhausted 

 state of the diaphragm, and intercostals, is in some instances peculiar 

 to these muscles, yet, very often, they merely participate in the gene- 

 rally exhausted condition, of all the other muscles of the body. 



If we examine the lungs of a blood, or thorough -bred Horse, we 

 find their structure the same as those of an ordinary Horse. 



But this is not the case with any other part of his frame ; for his 

 muscles are firmer and more compact, the texture of the general 



3X 



