BROKEN WIND. 167 



broken-wind, nor was there any interlobular emphysema 

 present. How, then, are we to account for the existence of 

 these sub-pleural vesicles ? In reference to man, Laennec 

 explains their offspring by finding them to be dilated air- 

 cells joro/rw^i?z^.- "that this is the case,'' he says, "is proved 

 by the circumstance that we cannot force the contained air 

 by pressure of the finger to leave its place." Whether such 

 cases as the following be of this description, I must leave to 

 be determined. Dr. Baillie thought that the air within 

 them was secreted. 



The FIRST CASE in which I perceived these surface or 

 pleural vesicles, was that of a bay horse, who had, during a 

 run with the Surrey fox-hounds on the 9th November, 1822, 

 been over-ridden by his master, the late celebrated Captain 

 Harvey, ofEltham, from which, on the fifth day afterwards, 

 he died. The cavity of the pericardium contained a pint of 

 fluid. The right lobe of the lungs was sprinkled with large, 

 white, soft tubercles, was of a pink colour, and presented 

 several large bladders of air, which raised the pleura from 

 the surface. 



The SECOND was a horse admitted into the infirmary of 

 the Ordnance at Woolwich, on the 5th February, 1823, with 

 symptoms of disordered bowels. His disease was never 

 made out. He died on the 1st of June succeeding. The 

 liver proved the chief seat of disease. Twenty ounces of 

 water were found in the pericardium. One lung was 

 remarkably pale — quite bleached in appearance ; the other 

 had its usual healthy aspect. Both right and left lungs 

 presented several bladders of air upon their surface, two or 

 three of which were as large as apples cut in halves. The 

 pleura of the vesicles was cleanly and completely detached 

 by air from the lung ; the connecting cellular membrane 

 having been absorbed. The integrity of the lung in these 

 places appeared to be unimpaired. Inflation of the lung to 

 extreme distension produced no visible alteration in the 

 vesicles, although the experiment was several times re- 

 peated. One circumstance alone appeared to render it 

 probable that the air might have come out of the lungs, and 



