CONDITION OF HUNTERS RESUMED 265 



must have been the presumption before the com- 

 plaint was christened. The walls of the stomach are 

 usually found to be attenuated.^ 



One point, I believe, is allowed. Broken wind 

 is ninety-nine times in a hundred preceded by chronic 

 cough. Now, were I a groom, I should have but little 

 fear of chronic cough (from which indeed one-third 

 of our hunters are not at this moment free) ; for 

 as the said cough is in ninety-nine cases out of a 

 hundred produced by plethora, occasioned by bad 

 grooming, improper food, and inattention to the state 

 of the bowels, I should know what I had to contend 

 with, and, by regarding it as the warning voice, steer 

 my course accordingly. 



Mr W. Percivall says (Lecture 38), " Exercise — at 

 least laborious and unprepared-for exercise (an ex- 

 cellent epithet this) — is an obvious source to which 

 we may trace disease {i.e. of the lungs)." Nothing 

 can be more true than this ; yet my experience has 

 never presented me with an instance of a man taking 

 his unprepared horse into the field, and (although 

 thousands have been killed by it) riding him with 

 hounds until his wind was broken. It is certainly a 

 general impression that a horse's wind can be broken 

 by hard riding up hills, etc., but such views are 

 erroneous. Feeding on dusty or mouldy hay, and 

 driving immediately after feeding, especially on bulky 

 food, are very liable to be followed by broken-wind. 



If a man has a broken-winded horse in his stable, 



^ The pathology of broken wind is still very unsatisfactory. — 

 Editor. 



