THEIR PATHOLOGY, DIAGNOSIS, AND TREATMENT. 10 



treatment in the proper course he may be vastly improved, although not 

 fully reinstated in his former health and usefulness. I have used the mas- 

 culine gender, although mares are said to be more subject to this disease 

 than horses, and young animals are but seldom sufferers, the aged, over- 

 worked, and ill-fed, and ill-stabled being the victims. Whether or 

 not it is originally a disorder of the digestive organs, as maintained by 

 some, the system of feeding is certainly often an inducing cause, and long 

 compulsory subsistence on poor, innutritious food, compelling the animal 

 to keep his stomach constantly on the stretch in order to obtain sufficient 

 sustenance, is a common cause. It should always be remembered by those 

 who have the management and feeding of horses that the stomach of 

 that animal is remarkably small for his size, being in this respect a perfect 

 contrast to the ox, whose capacious paunch may be always distended with 

 food, his motions being slow, and who, in fact, seems to have nothing 

 else to do than to eat and grow fat. Long continued feeding on dry 

 food, as meal, bran, and dusty chaff and hay, may produce broken wind, 

 as it aggravates it when established. The disease may be of slow growth, 

 succeeding to chronic cough or cold, or to thick wind, &c., or brought 

 on by persistent errors in feeding conjointly with unwholesome, ill-venti- 

 lated stabling; but it is also often caused suddenly, and this is generally so 

 if, when the horse has been blown out with green food, or after a full feed 

 of any kind, or a bucket of water, he is at once driven fast or put to 

 heavy draught, and of course, the fuller the feed and the sharper the pace, 

 the heavier the draught or the greater the exertion, whatever it may be, 

 the greater the danger ; as in such a case the full, distended stomach, inter 

 feres with the increased action of the lungs, preventing the complete 

 expulsion of the air; some of the air cells of the lungs become gorged, are 

 ruptured, and run into each other ; these unnatural cells retain the 

 inhaled air, the forcible expulsion or attempt at expulsion of which 

 causes ever after the double effort of expiration so characteristic of 

 broken wind. 



The symptoms of broken wind are so clearly marked that no disease 

 is more easily recognised. The animal suffers from a short, grunting cough, 

 which is forced out with a jerky, painful effort. Eespiration is divided into 

 three acts instead of two, as in health. The breath is drawn in quickly, 

 and with a single effort ; expiration is broken into two distinct endeavours 

 to expel the air, the first by the muscles used for that purpose in an 

 ordinary state of health ; these failing to do so entirely, the auxiliary 

 muscles ; more markedly those of the abdomen, come into play, rising to 

 assist in emptying the lungs. These two efforts are slow and laboured 

 and before completion the animal again requires to inhale fresh air ; tha 

 muscles of expulsion suddenly relax, and the flank falls in with peculiar 

 force, so as to catch the eye of the least observant. The double actioD 

 in expiration and falling in of the flank are most marked characteristics 

 of the disease, which cannot escape the notice of anyone. Other attendant 

 symptoms frequently, if not always present, are a ravenous appetite and 



