BROKEN- WIND. 213 



of the pressure and weight of the stomach, will be a serious addition to the extra 

 work, which the lungs already have to perform from their altered structure. 



Something may be done in the pallialinn of thick-wind, and more than has been 

 generally supposed, by means of exercise. If the thick-winded horse is put, as it 

 were, into a regular system of training; if he is daily exercised to the fair extent of 

 his power, and without seriously distressing him, his breathing will become freer and 

 deeper, and his wind will materially improve. We shall call to our aid one of the 

 most powerful excitants of the absorbent system — pressure, that of the air upon the 

 tube — the working part of the lung upon the disorganised — and, adjusting this so as 

 not to excite irritation or inflammation, we may sometimes do wonders. This is the 

 ver}' secret of traitiin'j, and the power and the durability of the hunter and the racer 

 depend entirely u])on this. 



Thick-wind, ho-.vcver, is not always the consequence of disease. There are certain 

 cloddy, round-chested horses, that are naturally thick-winded, at least to a certain 

 extent. They are capable of that slow exertion for which nature designed them, but 

 they are immediately distressed if put a little out of their usual pace. A circular 

 chest, whether the horse is large or small, indicates thick-wind. The circular chest 

 is a capacious one, and the lungs which till it are large, and they supply suthcient 

 arterialised blood to produce plenty of flesh and fat, and these horses are always fat. 

 This is the point of proof to which we look, when all that we want from the animal 

 is flesh and fat ; but the expanding form of the chest is that which we require in the 

 animal of speed — the deep as well as the broad chest — always capacious for the pur- 

 pose of muscular strength, and becoming considerably more so when arterialised blood 

 is rapidly expended in quick progression. We cannot enlarge the capacity of a circle ; 

 and if more blood is to be furnished, that which cannot be done by increase of surface, 

 must be accomplished by frequency of action. Therefore it is that all our heavy 

 draught-horses are thick-winded. It is of little detriment to them, for their work is 

 slow; or rather it is an advantage to them, for the circular chest, always at its greatest 

 capacity, enables them to acquire that weight which it is so advantageous for them to 

 throw into the collar. 



BROKEN-WIND. 



This is immediately recognisable by the manner of breathing. The inspiration is 

 performed in somewhat less than the natural time, and with an increased degree of 

 labour: but the expiration has a peculiar difhculty accompanying it. It is accom- 

 plished by a double eftort, in the first of which, as Mr. Blaine has well explained it, 

 " the usual muscles operate ; and in the other, the auxiliary muscles, particularly the 

 abdominal, are put on the stretch to complete the expulsion more perfectly ~; and that 

 being done, the flank falls, or the abdominal muscles relax with a kind of jerk or 

 spasm." 



The majority of veterinary surgeons attribute broken-wind to an emphysema^wus 

 state of the lungs. In almost every broken-winded horse which he has exammed 

 after death, the author of this work has found dilatation of some of the air-cells, and 

 particularly towards the edges of the lobes. There has been rupture through the 

 parietes of some of the cells, and they have evidently communicated with one 

 another, and the air could be easily forced from one portion of the cells to another. 

 There was also a crepitating noise while this pressure was made, as if the attenuated 

 membrane of some of the cells had given way. These were the true broken cells, 

 and hence the derivation of the name of the disease. 



Broken-wind is preceded or accompanied by cough — a cough perfectly character- 

 istic, and by which the horseman would, in the dark, detect the existence of the dis- 

 ease. It is short — seemingly cut short — grvmting, and followed by wheezing. When 

 the animal is suddenly struck or threatened, there is a low grunt of the same nature 

 as that of roaring, but not so loud. Broken-wind is usually preceded by cough; the 

 cough becomes chronic, leads on to thick-wind, and then there is but a step to broken- 

 wind. It is the consequence of the cough which accompanies catarrh and bronchitis 

 oftener than that attending or following pneumonia; and of inflammation, and pro- 

 bably, thickening of the membrane of the bronchiae, rather than of congestion of the 

 air-cells. 



Laennec, whose illustrations of the diseases of the chest are invaluable to the hu 

 man surgeon, comes to our assistance, and, while describing emphysema of the lungs 



