BROKEN-WIND, 297 



followed broncliitis, it would certainly be justifiable practice to blister 

 the brisket and sides, and that repeatedly ; and to administer purgatives 

 if we dared, or diuretics, more effectual than the pui-gativcs and always 

 safe. 



Our attention must be principally confined to diet and management. A 

 thick-winded horse should have his full proj^ortion, or rather more than 

 his propoi'tion, of corn and beans, and a diminished quantity of less nutri- 

 tious food, in order that the stomach may never be overloaded, and press 

 upon the diaphragm, and so upon the lungs, and increase the labour of 

 these already overworked organs. Particular care should be taken that 

 the horse is not worked immediatel}^ after a full meal ; the overcoming 

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

 the extra work wliich the lungs already have to perform from their altered 

 structure. 



Something may be done in the palliation 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 ex- 

 ercised to the fail" extent of his power, and without seriously distressing 

 him, his breathing will become freer and deeper, and his wind will ma- 

 terially 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 won- 

 ders. This is the very secret of training, and the power and the dui-a- 

 biHty of the hunter and the racer depends entii-ely upon this. 



Tliick-^vind, however, is not always the consequence of disease. There 

 are certain cloddy round-chested horses that are naturally thick-\vinded, 

 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 therr 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 fill it are lai-ge ; and they supply sufficient 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 Avhen 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 purpose of muscular strength, and becom- 

 ing considerably more so when arterialised blood is rapidly exjjcnded in 

 quick progression. We cannot enlarge the ca^jacity 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 

 many of our heavy draught-horses are thick- winded. It is of little detri- 

 ment to them, for their work is slow — or rather it is an advantage to them ; 

 ■for the circular chest, always at its gTeatest capacity, enables them to 

 acquire that weight which is so advantageous for them to throw into the 

 collar. 



BROKEN-WIND. 



This is immediately recognisable by the manner of breathing. The in- 

 spiration is performed in somewhat less than the natural time, and without 

 an increased degree of labour : but the exprration has a peculiar difhcultv 

 accompanying it. It is accompHshed by a double effoi't, 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.' 



