WHIMS AND VICIOUS HABITS. 865 



licking the plastering on the walls of their stables, then they had bitten 

 it with the teeth, and finally had eaten it. 



At any rate, the facts of which we speak are exact and are, besides, 

 familiar to physiologists and pathologists. Are they always the result 

 of a vicious habit and bad education, or are they rather the expression 

 of a need of the organism which does not find a sufficient quantity^of 

 earthy salts in the ordinary aliments? This has not yet been de-. 

 monstrated. The truth resides, in all probability, in both of these 

 hypotheses. 



Of itself, the vice of eating earth may give rise to very serious 

 consequences. Subjects which suffer from it are exposed, among other 

 things, to frequent colics, and even to irremediable intestinal obstruc- 

 tions. Their purchase, therefore, is not to be recommended, but, in 

 France, this vice is not considered as belonging to the list of redhibitory 

 vices. We shall see that the case is entirely different with the following 

 vice, which consists in swallowing air. 



15th. Horses which have the Vice of " Wind- Sucking," or 

 swallowing Air. The various modes of swallowing air are vulgarly 

 known by the names cribbing and wind-sucking. In the great majority 

 of cases, this habit is accompanied with a guttural noise very much 

 resembling an eructation ; exceptionally, this noise is not made. 



Authors are far from agreeing upon the true nature of cribbing. 

 Nearly all consider it as proceeding from a simple eructation of gas 

 through the mouth. Others consider it as resulting from a deglutition 

 of air. Notwithstanding the number and authority of those who ex- 

 press an opinion contrary to ours, we hold firmly to our view, for it 

 rests upon physiological and experimental facts to which no serious 

 objection has yet been offered. 1 



In the first place, the guttural noise has not the characters of that 

 of belching, but is rather an effort having its seat in the larynx. Upon 

 a horse which cribbed with a loud sound, we practised tracheotomy and 

 divided the two recurrent laryngeal nerves. 



The animal continued to crib ; but the sound disappeared on account 

 of the paralysis of the larynx and the opening made in the trachea. 



i See, for further details : 



Liautard, Du tic a 1'appui, in Journal de mSdecine v6t6rinaire publi6 a 1'Ecole de Lyon, 

 1861, pp. 552 et 600. 



Farges, Du tic et de ses diverses especes dans le cheval, in Recueil de m6decine vete>inaire, 

 1864, p. 5. 



Arm. Goubaux, Communication sur le tic proprement dit, in Journal de m6decine v6t6ri- 

 naire public a 1'Ecole de Lyon, 1866, p. 249. 



55 



