MODERN FARRIER. 4>g 



* As the horse does not expectorate through the 

 niOLith, the mucus is coughed up into the nose, from 

 whence it is afterwards discharged by the action of 

 sneezing. But in the old or dry cough, as there is- 

 no mucus coughed up, so the horse does not sneeze 

 after coughing ; and much reliance is placed on this 

 circumstance by dealers, in forming their opinion as 

 to the state of a horse's lungs. 



' It is therefore their custom to piiich the upper 

 part of the trachea, or windpipe, to force the horse 

 to cough, so as to enable them to ascertain whether 

 he is sound in his wind ; and although this is by no 

 means an infallible criterion, still there is a very 

 manifest difference between the cough of a sound 

 horse and one that is broken-winded, inasmuch as 

 the first is clear, full, and sonorous, whilst the latter 

 is short, and generally attended with a wheezing 

 noise, and mostly accompanied by a discharge of 

 wind from the fundament, in consequence of the 

 sudden contraction of the abdominal muscles in the 

 effort to expel air from the lungs. Many curious 

 tricks are said to be practised by the lower class of 

 horse-dealers, such as giving the animal a large 

 quantity of oil, and sometimes a quantity of leaden 

 shot ; both equally ridiculous and unavailing : but 

 the most absurd practice of all is the custom of 

 making an artificial and additional opening to the 

 anus, with a view of more easily letting out the 

 wind with which horses in this state are particularly 

 troubled. This fiatulency, or collection of air in the 

 intestines, has no connexion whatever with the ca- 

 vity of the chest, and the only inconvenience which 

 it occasions arises from its distending the belly, and 

 consequently impeding in some degree the action of 

 the lungs. It is produced entirely from that indi- 

 gestion which always accompanies, more or less, a 

 diseased state of the lungs ; for as a free and perfect 

 -respiration is essential to the general health and vi- 

 gour of animal bodies, so the want of it must nat«-. 



