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the neck : this brings on that husky cough which 

 marks the disease. Many horses, perhaps most 

 will cough, and that violently, if the pressure is 

 severe ; but there is an essential difference between 

 the loud and spasmodic cough which the healthy 

 horse will utter, and the hacking tone of chronic 

 asthma. Until a man has learned to distinguish 

 between the two, he might as well pinch his own 

 throat as the horse's ; and as this distinction can 

 only be acquired by practice, it is as I have ob- 

 served, very difficult for a beginner to satisfy him- 

 self on this point. It may however, be inferred by 

 the most unskilful, that if the horse, seeming other- 

 wise quiet, flinches from the approach of the hand, 

 it is because he has frequently been tried, and 

 therefore perhaps, frequently excited the suspicions 

 of better-informed customers. 



Very analogous to this disorder is the enviable 

 faculty called " roaring," which, if I remember 

 right, that celebrated equestrian Geoffrey Gambado 

 recommends as an inestimable quality in your horse, 

 because it saves your voice, to summon the toll- 

 collector to his gate : nevertheless these " roarers" 

 are usually silent in a dealer's stable. I believe 

 that the seat of the disease is the throat, or more 

 correctly speaking, the wind-pipe. It is considered 

 incurable. It is not elicited by any moderate exer- 



