CAUSATION. 521 



life in the Border counties, the agricultural horses were fed on 

 oats, with hay or oat-straw, the fodder being given ad libitum 

 in racks. While this, a rather expensive system, was con- 

 tinued, broken-wind was a disease unknown. 



Some years since the chopping of both hay and oat straw 

 for fodder began to be carried out, and with the extensive 

 use of this, broken-wind became a comparatively common 

 disease. 



So long as the horses are fed on part oat-straw and part hay, 

 both cut rather long, matters are not so bad ; but when hay 

 alone is used, and cut very short, the effect on horses is most 

 destructive. There can be no doubt that even of the best 

 quality, too much chopped hay is apt to induce broken- wind ; 

 but the most serious results are encountered when the hay 

 cut and given is- bad in quality, too much heated, or even too 

 old. Here I believe much damage is done by the quantity of 

 dust, which is not only swallowed with the hay, and operates 

 injuriously through the stomach, but also by that which finds 

 its way into the air-passages, and by direct irritation of the 

 parts, further aggravates the disturbance. That our lighter 

 breeds of horses are not greater sufferers from broken- wind is 

 entirely owing to the fewer opportunities they have of re- 

 ceiving damage from improper dietary. I have seen well-bred 

 animals, when fed on inferior, damaged, and dusty hay, and 

 no means taken either to restrict the allowance or remove 

 the dust and damaged parts, become in a short time distress- 

 ingly affected with this disorder. 



4. Structural Changes, the Result of a previously diseased 

 Condition. — Organic disease, the result of inflammatory action 

 extending over a greater or more restricted portion of lung- 

 tissue, may give origin to s3maptoms very much resembling, if 

 not identical with, those of broken- wind. Whatever may arrest 

 the contractile power and action of the pulmonary tissue 

 chiefly resident in the smaller air-tubes, will simulate or induce 

 this disease. 



Other structural alterations connected with the lungs or 

 heart, tumours, etc., with other obscure diseases of nerve- 

 structure, may of themselves, and directly in certain instances, 

 induce a train of symptoms which may resemble the associa- 

 tion of phenomena grouped under the name ' broken- wind.' 



