132 MANUAL OF EQUINE MEDICINE. 



A large number of cart-horses, and large horses of all 

 breeds, are apt to be grunters being nevertheless quite 

 sound in their wind. Any horse also may grunt if he has 

 been fed for a time with bulky food. 



COUGHING. — Cough is a modification of breathing, 

 characterized by a deep drawn inspiration, followed by 

 closure of the glottis, and one or more short but violent 

 expiratory acts. It is generally excited by irritation or 

 abnormal accumulation at the glottis, in the trachea, 

 or in the larger bronchial tubes, or it is a simple nervous 

 affection. 



Cough is dry or moist. Dry cough is of several varieties ; 

 short, hollow, hacking, broken-winded, and spasmodic. 

 Dry cough is characteristic of irritation, and of dryness of 

 the respiratory mucous membrane. In the early stages of 

 laryngitis it is long and loud and sonorous, becoming 

 rasping, and afterwards moist. 



In chronic diseases of the larynx it is loud and often 

 hollow. In the early stages of bronchitis it has a hollow 

 metallic sound, and becomes moist afterwards, and is more 

 or less painful throughout the disease. 



In pneumonia the cough is short, and in the later stages 

 of the disease it is accompanied by expectoration of a 

 rusty-coloured tenacious secretion. 



The cough of pleurisy is dry and hacking, and is sometimes 

 broken, as it were, in the middle. The broken-winded 

 cough is at first spasmodic, becoming, as the disease advances, 

 feeble, short, and single : the horse, being unable to relieve 

 himself by the action of the chest and lungs, gives a sup- 

 pressed cough, which is characteristic. The hollow cough 

 varies in intensity, and is indicative of chronic disease. 

 Moist cough is indicative of an inflamed and humid con- 

 dition of the respiratory mucous membrane. 



WHISTLING is of two kinds— soft or moist, dry or 



