558 NEEVOUS DISEASES. 



treme compressibility, he finds difficult to " get down.'^ It has 

 often been remarked that an old cribber or windsucker may be 

 known by the unusually large development of the muscles {sterno- 

 maxillaris and onw-hyoideus, among others) which the practice of 

 his vice calls into play. 



Farges gives an instance of a foal practising it at three months, 

 and others at six months old. 



CRIBBING AND WINDSUCKING BY ANIMALS OTHER 

 THi\.N THE HORSE. — Several cases of cribbing and windsucking 

 by horned cattle, and of cribbing by pigs are on record. Cadeac 

 states that mules have never been known to be affected with either 

 form of this vice. 



Aerophagia (air-swallowing) is recognised as a nervous disease 

 in human medicine. " In the Edinburgh Hospital Reports of 1895, 

 Dr. John Wyllie has described the cases of neurotic individuals who 

 acquired the power of creating by muscular action negative pres- 

 sure in the oesophagus and thus sucked air into their stomachs. 

 In the Lancet of August 1st, 1896, p. 304, Dr. G. A. Sutherland 

 published a case of this kind. Dr. Wyllie terms this condition 

 ' air-sucking ' and distinguishes it from air-swallowing. The case 

 of one of Barnum's ' freaks,^ who could, by swallowing air, pass 

 rapidly from the appearance of emaciation to corpulency, may 

 also be mentioned " (" Lancet "). 



NATURE. — It appears that the horse requires practice to suc- 

 cessfully accomplish the effort which he makes to swallow air when 

 cribbing or windsucking. Hence, we find as a rule that marked 

 flatulent distension of the abdomen, as a consequence of the action 

 of this vice, is present only in confirmed cases. When there is no 

 distension, we may assume that but little air is swallowed, or that 

 the air which is taken into the mouth is expelled from it when 

 muscular relaxation occurs after the spasm peculiar to the vice 

 has taken place. Both forms of this vice get worse with age. 



Windsucking, which is much rarer than cribbing, appears to be 

 the more developed form of the two; for its practice is far more 

 frequently followed by flatulent distension than that of crib-biting. 



Cadeac citcis, among others, the following proofs that air-swallow- 

 ing and not eructation (belching) is the essential act of cribbing 

 and windsucking: — 



1. The attitude of drawing in the chin and rounding the neck, 

 in which this vice is practised, is that of swallowing and not of 

 belching, in which the head and neck are extended as much as pos- 

 sible. 



2. If the gullet of the cribber or windsucker be laid bare, we 



