BROKEN -WIND. 175 



phenomena admit of ready pathological solution. The 

 extravasated air is tardily and with difficulty forced back 

 into its proper channels; to effect it, the lungs require 

 additional and even supplementary compression : but, when 

 once this has been accomplished, fresh air readily rushes in 

 to occupy the vacuum, larger than ordinary, which is created 

 by the dilatation of the chest. The cough is more than 

 short ; it is half suppressed or chopped off, as it were ; and 

 so feeble, that at any distance it is hardly audible : fre- 

 quently, it is followed by a wheezing sound in the throat, 

 and then puts one in mind of an asthmatic man. At the 

 beginning of the disease — and indeed on certain occasions 

 afterwards — cough is apt to be very troublesome; to come on 

 in fits, particularly during exercise, or after drinking. When 

 the disease is once established, and there exists no particular 

 excitement, the cough is solitary, as well as short and feeble, 

 i, e.j the horse coughs but once at a time.^ — Indigestion, 

 also, is a prominent symptom. The horse has a voracious 

 appetite, and yet is in lean condition. Though a voracious 

 feeder, he is nothing but an ill-conditioned hide-bound 

 looking animal.^ And well he may be; for if we examine 

 his dung we shall find it looking like so much chopped hay, 

 mingled with oats and husks, altogether evincing a most 

 imperfect digestion. Out of this likewise arises that re- 

 markable flatulence of bowel which is the occasion of the 

 tumid, tense, tympanitic belly, frequently pendent from 

 weakness, and which is, moreover, often so annoying in 

 another way — one from whence, as I said before, the dis- 

 order appears to have derived its name. When the horse is 

 first taken out of his stable and put to exercise or work, the 

 ejection of wind, simultaneous with every effort he makes, 

 or even with his cough, together with the occasional void- 

 ance of faeces, is in some cases very offensive : it, however, 

 affords him relief in his breathing, by making room for the 

 recession of the diaphragm, and to the degree that, after 

 he has once ^'^ emptied himself,^^ he will work on with very 

 little inconvenience to himself or annoyance to his master. 

 * Vide Gloag's 'Thoughts on Broken-Wind,' in * The Veterinarian' for 1852. 



