260 HOBSE PORTKAITUEE. 



myself. I would urge you to take the first opportunity of 

 acquiring a scientific education, so far as may be necessary 

 to know the physiological and anatomical structure of tho 

 animals you expect to breed and train. When the winter- 

 season puts a stop to practical training, join a class of ve- 

 terinary students, and acquaint the teacher of what you 

 want to learn, when he will order a course of study that 

 will be of the greatest importance to you hereafter. Doubt- 

 less when you acquire this information you will look back 

 to our present conversation, and see many errors, though 

 the deductions drawn from the statements I am going to make 

 I know to be correct. They have been demonstrated by my 

 practice, and since I have followed my present plan of 

 sweating I have never had a horse become baked or fever- 

 ish, which was frequently the case when I sweated them 

 without thinking of the causes why it should be done, or 

 was aware of the results that might be expected to follow. 

 The action of the heart is so much identified with the 

 lungs that both have to be taken into consideration. 

 Quicken the motion of the one, and you accelerate the 

 other, but not in the same proportion. For instance, when 

 a horse is breathing tranquilly, the respirations are from 

 four to eight in a minute, and the pulsations thirty-six to 

 forty. As you increase the motion of the lungs by fast 

 work, the respirations will be multiplied, till the ratio will 

 be as one to two, possibly two to three. Suppose that, in 

 driving Never Mind, you had kept up the rate of speed 

 you took in the brush, until he became distressed. The 

 respirations would probably have been forty or forty-five 

 times in a minute, with the pulsations at seventy-five to 

 eighty. The inspirations at times would be a good deal 

 longer than the expirations, frequently sighing and "blow- 

 ing out" suddenly. This would arise from the amount of 

 adipose matter interfering with the heart and lungs, re- 

 stricting the first, and enfeebling the others ; and it would 



