520 BROKEN WIND. 



perament, the animals are, under the same conditions and sur- 

 roundings, more Hable to become sufferers from this particular 

 disordered condition than others not possessed of the same 

 congenital constitution. 



2. Breed. — It is rarely denied that broken-wind is peculiarly 

 a disease of our coarser-bred horses, not, probably, because of 

 their breed simply, but rather because of their subjection to 

 influences which may more truly be ranked under the next 

 group of causes. 



3. Dietetic. — The most frequent sufferers from broken- wind 

 are our agricultural horses, and others used for purposes of 

 slow draught. With these the food is often of a bulky, dusty, 

 or innutritions nature, and where the animals are compelled to 

 undergo exertion immediately succeeding a bulky meal and a 

 full allowance of water. 



That defective dietetic conditions are largely operative in 

 the production of disease in all animals we can easily enough 

 understand, but that errors either as to quantity or quality 

 should be specially operative in the production of this special 

 disturbance, chiefly characterized by impeded respiratory 

 function and not generally affecting the system, seems not so 

 obvious. It is to the special or particular eftects of certain 

 foods on particular organs, not to the general results of these 

 foods, that we must turn for the true cause of this abnormal 

 condition. 



By those who regard the emphysema and other textural 

 changes of lung-structure as the direct and immediate cause 

 of those symptoms which together are taken to represent this 

 condition known as broken-wind, the distended and over- 

 loaded stomach is, by its mechanical bulk and pressure on the 

 actively engaged lungs, believed to operate in the production 

 of the pulmonary lesions. 



By others the series of morbid phenomena which constitute 

 the disease, although recognised as proceeding from the ad- 

 mitted gastric engorgement, are believed to have been reached 

 in a somewhat difl'erent manner, not by physical embarrass- 

 ment of pulmonary tissue and its subsequent disorganization, 

 but by paralysis of lung-tissue the efl'ect of reflected nerve- 

 action resulting from peripheral irritation. 



For many years during the earlier part of my professional 



