402 RUPTURE, OR INTESTINAL HERNI^E. 



may certainly be traced to idleness ; but then it cannot be 

 supposed that the mere action of cribbiting, were it either 

 a vice or an amusement, could tend to deprive a horse of 

 flesh. The faulty digestion at once keeps them thin, and 

 makes them prone to assume this dyspeptic symptom, 

 which, once acquired, is lasting from habit, even although 

 we could remove the original cause. To prevent the crib- 

 biting, nothing more is necessary than to place a strap of 

 two and a half inches broad around the throat, tightened 

 only to the degree necessary to prevent the action ; this it 

 does by rendering it painful to distend the oesophagus. 

 The first symptom of cribbiting is usually the licking of the 

 manger, which habit the horse about to crib will indulge for 

 hours together. If taken at this point, and a piece of rock 

 salt placed before him, the animal will apply his tongue to 

 it ; this usually prevents him from becoming a cribber, 

 by giving him employment and strengthening his stomach. 

 Most persons imagine that cribbing rounds the teeth, which 

 is an unfounded prejudice, though horses of a nervous 

 temperament, which snap and bite much while being dressed, 

 generally have the incisors very much rounded. Some 

 horses, notwithstanding they are inveterate cribbers, get fat, 

 and perform the work briskly, even to the end of prolonged 

 lives. 



MORBID DISPLACEMENTS OF THE INTESTINES, &C. 

 RUPTURE, OR INTESTINAL HERNIyE, 



Hernia, in its strict sense, is a protrusion of any viscus 

 out of its natural cavity ; hence we have hernia of the 

 brain, of the lungs, and of the various viscera of the ab- 

 dominal regions. Hernia, as we propose to consider it, is a 

 displacement of the intestines from the abdominal cavity, 

 either through some of the natural openings or through 

 artificial ones, the effects of accident. When such protru- 

 sion takes place through a moderate opening, and the 

 portion of gut can be readily returned, it is called a re- 

 ducible hernia ; but when it occurs through a small open- 

 ing, and the intestine cannot be replaced, it is termed an 

 irreducible hernia. If the mouth of the opening, round the 



