ASTHMA. 379 



a pound of boiled linseed, or a quarter of a pint of linseed oil. 

 Attend to the horse's general health and to the proper ventilation 

 of the stable. Keep him short of food and water before being 

 worked; though, when doing continuous work for some hours, 

 small quantities of gruel or water, giv&n occasionally, are of benefit. 

 Total deprivation of water at such times, is almost as bad as giving 

 it in excess. 



An ounce of liquor arsenicalis, increased up to two ounces, given 

 daily in the food for a fortnight, might be tried. A pound of lard 

 or butter, which may be given in balls, acts in abating the distress 

 for a few hours. Horse copers sometimes endeavour to pass off a 

 broken-winded animal as sound, by giving him, a short time before 

 examination, a number of balls of fat, or a quantity of shot, which 

 acts as a sedative. 



M. G. Geudens (" Annales de Med. Veter.") states that he cured 

 two horses of broken wind by giving them every morning and 

 evening for about two months, ^ grain of strychnine arseniate, 

 4 grains of arseniate of iron, and 30 grains of iodide of potassium 

 in a pint of ale. 



Damp forage is recommended in this complaint. Trasbot, re- 

 ferring to palliative measures, remarks : " We will only cite damped 

 hay, green food, and, above all, forage wet with molasses and water. 

 This last regimen, employed often in the north of France, has given 

 very satisfactory results." 



Broken wind is a grave unsoundness. 



Asthma. 



This very rare equine disease is a chronic condition which is 

 characterised by paroxysms of distressed breathing that come on 

 at more or less regular periods. 



With our present state of knowledge, we cannot say whether or not the 

 causes of asthma are the same in all cases. The two most probable theories 

 are those of spasm, and of engorgement. By the former, the paroxysms are 

 supposed to be caused by the spasmodic and more or less continued contraction 

 of the muscles that surround the small air-tubes, which condition interferes 

 with the act of breathing, by closing, to a greater or less extent, these air- 

 passages. The contraction of these muscles appears to take place during 

 inspiration. The muscles which surround the small air-tubes may become so 

 developed from continued exercise, that they may cause a permanent narrow- 

 ing of the calibre of these passages. Owing to the action of the iiTitated 

 nerves, the circulation in the lungs will become impeded, and we may have 

 a certain amount of dropsy in these organs, on account of the increased 

 exudation of Avatery fluid which escapes from the congested blood-vessels. 

 From difficulty of expiration during the paroxysms, emphysema of the lungs 

 is a probable result of asthma. By the second theory (that of Clark), the 

 difficulty of breathing is accounted for, on the supposition that, owing to 

 some seclative influence on the vaso-motor nerves which supply the bronchial 

 tubes, engorgement of the blood-vessels of their mucous membrane takes 



