3o6 Veterinary Medicine. 



Shortness of breath and inabihty to proceed when trotted or 

 galloped on hard ground or when walked up hill, the animal being 

 in fair condition, without fever or cough, but subject to cold ex- 

 tremities and a venous pulse in the jugulars, almost certainl}' in- 

 dicates insufficiency of the auriculo-ventricular valves on the right 

 side of the heart. 



Vertigo megrims or giddiness may be caused by heart disease 

 The horse without having sustained any pressure on the veins of 

 the neck by the collar, and having had no previous symptom of 

 brain disease suddenly reels in harness and perhaps falls. There 

 are the cold and engorged limbs or a tendency to their engorge- 

 ment as in the former case. The attacks recur, when the horse 

 is put to the same exertion, and he proves utterly worthless. In 

 such cases a careful examination of the pulse and heart sounds 

 will complete the chain of evidence. 



An almost constant feature of chronic heart disease is a condi- 

 tion of dulness, sluggishness, and in many cases, curiously enough, 

 a tendency to lay on fat, so that although the patient is unfit to 

 work, he appears to enjoy excellent general health to which a pe- 

 riod is only put by sudden death. 



Affections of the heart are primarily divisible into functional 

 and strjtcticral disorders. 



