COUGH. 35 



Our prognosis, it will be inferred from what has been 

 stated, in a case of cough, must not be abruptly or in- 

 cautiously formed. We must endeavour to ascertain its 

 origin and its duration, its nature, symptomatic, sympathetic 

 or idiopathic : we must also pay attention to the kind of 

 cough — the particular sound emitted — which in some cases 

 will of itself bespeak its nature. From the bold sonorous 

 cough, characteristic of the sound condition of the air- 

 passages and lungs, we distinguish, by practice, the humid 

 cough ; the dry, hard, or short cough ; the soft or feeble 

 cough ; the hollow cough ; the intermittent cough ; and the 

 broken-winded cough. 



The humid cough is that which commonly attends 

 catarrh, strangles, bronchitis and influenza; and in some 

 instances other disorders. It may, however, be idiopathic. 

 It is accompanied with expectoration, which, when abundant, 

 shows itself in de fluxion from the nose, and is, in the act of 

 coughing — which is often prolonged, and by mucus collected 

 in the throat, rendered painful and annoying — ejected 

 through the mouth, causing the animal to move his jaws 

 and tongue about, slabbering out part and sucking in the 

 rest of the expectorated matter, and swallowing it. In cases 

 of sore throat and inflammation in the chest this becomes a 

 weak or feeble cough. 



The dry or short cough — independently of its being 

 a sign of an inflammatory or unsecreting condition of the 

 air-passages — may arise from sympathetic irritation; although 

 I believe it will oftener be found to be idiopathic. Teething 

 may occasion it. Disorder or irritation in the alimentary 

 canal may generate it. How often is it that a young horse 

 having what grooms call " a constitutional cough,^^ is at the 

 same time looking rough in his coat, and altogether out of 

 health ? May not this — which we are in the habit of as- 

 cribing to diseased lungs — be owing, in some cases, to dis- 

 ordered or imperfect digestion? I have observed that 

 flat-sided, pigeon-breasted colts are the most frequent 

 subjects of cough, as if malformation of the chest was also 

 occasionally concerned in its production. But, every now 



