HORSE-BACK RIDING. 97 



emphysema. The physical signs of this condition 

 are increased size of chest, a prominence of the 

 tissue between the ribs, and an increase in the in- 

 tensity of the respiratory sounds. This lesion bears 

 the same relation to asthma that dilatation of the left 

 ventricle does to insufficiency of the aortic orifice 

 or of the stomach in cancer of the pylorus. 



We have seen that horse-back riding modifies the 

 functions of the organic life, as well as those of the 

 life of relation — just the ones that are affected in 

 asthma. By horse-back riding the cutaneous circu- 

 lation is intensified, excretion by means of the skin 

 increased, and, owing to the increase in the amount 

 of blood in the skin, the general circulation is modi- 

 fied, and therefore nutrition and muscular contrac- 

 tility ; the lymphatic circulation is quickened, and 

 thus in pathological cases serious infiltrations are 

 sometimes removed. 



Organs of Digcstio7t. 



a. Dyspepsia — Gastralgia — Pyrosis. — Many writers 

 regard the functional troubles of the digestive organs 

 only as symptoms of some acute or chronic disease, 

 and not as distinct neurosis, no matter what relation 

 the nervous system may have to the disorder. 



These writers would scarcely assign a place to those 

 alterations of sensibility and contractility of the 

 stomach and intestines which are known as gastro- 

 enteralgia. 



