BROKEN WIND. 221 



examining the matter a little more attentively^ 

 two very probable reafons maybe adduced tend- 

 ing to lead us to a much more RATIONAL 

 opinion of the caufe. 



For Inftance, whether horfes who have been 

 in the habit of full or foul feeding, with a very 

 trifling portion of exercife, and without any 

 internal cleanfing from evacuations, compul- 

 fively obtained by purgatives or diuretics, may 

 not conftantly engender a quantity of "ji/cid, 

 tough, phlegmatic matter -, which accumulating 

 by flow degrees may fo clog and fill up fome 

 of that infinity of minute paiTages with which 

 the lungs are known to abound, as probably to 

 obftru6l the air veflels in their neceffary ex- 

 panfion for the office of refpiration. And whe- 

 ther this very probable obftrudlion, or partial 

 fuppreflion, may not in fudden, hafly, and 

 long continued exertions, rupture others, and 

 by fuch local deficiency afi-ed: the elafticity 

 of the whole ? The probability, and indeed 

 great appearance of this progrefs, has ever in- 

 fluenced me mod: forcibly to believe that fuch 

 obftruClions once formed, the evil accumulates, 

 till a multiplicity of the vefl*els become im- 

 pervious, and render the lungs^ by their con- 



ftant 



