820 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



DISEASES OF THE DIAPHRAGM. 



The great muscle which divides the chest from the 

 abdomen, or the organs of respiration and heart from those 

 of digestion and secretion, is liable to two lesions, spasm 

 and rupture. 



Spasm of the Diaphragm is marked by a loud thumping 

 noise, audible some yards from the sufferer. The pulse felt 

 at the chest is feeble and rapid, and but scarcely perceivable 

 at the jaws. The breathing is quick and laborious, and the 

 animal shivers distressingly. Over- exertion on a full 

 stomach is often the cause. Bleeding, aperient medicines, 

 and then a sedative, are the active treatment called for. 



Rupture of the Diaphragm, induced by the same causes 

 as spasm, is, if extensive, fatal. If slightly ruptured, the 

 horse has been known to live with symptoms of broken 

 wind. Extra exertion will be at once fatal, as the viscera 

 would come through the fissure and become strangulated. 

 There is no treatment for ruptured diaphragm. 



CHAPTER XX 

 THE HORSE IN SICKNESS AND DISEASE 



DISEASES OF THE HEART, PERICARDIUM, AND 

 BLOOD-VESSELS. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



Air, food, and exercise in good quality, and proper quantity, 

 are the first requirements for good blood ; with these, the 

 production of the fluid which builds up every structure of 

 the body — bone, sinew, and muscle — would remain in due 

 proportion and quality, and disease (if nature did not scorn 

 to be bound by our limited logic) would be unknown. The 

 organic functions of the other viscera may be summed up 

 in two words, assimilation and secretion. That of the 

 blood, the product of assimilation, is to build up and 

 renovate. Every part of the living animal is constantly 

 running into decay from use, and requiring renovation — a 

 process which begins with birth and ends with death. The 



