DIAGNOSIS. 25 



forward and place your right ear against the side of the breast, 

 when you will distinctly hear the beat of the double heart; that is to 

 say, you hear the closing of the valves of the uppsr part of the 

 heart first, immediately followed by the closing of the valves of 

 the lo'.vjr half of tlis heart; these two sounds have to be counted as 

 one in calculating the pulsations of the artery; but the plan affords 

 a very nice check in case of irregularity of the pulsations and if 

 the substance of the heart or its valves are at fault, it is the more 

 readily observed by this method of auscultation or listening to the 

 heart's sounds. In utilizing the pulse for purposes of diagnosis 

 it must be borne in mind that while frequency of beat is always 

 present in cases of acute fever and in inflammation of the internal 

 organs, and may be relied upon as a certain indication of disease, 

 provided the frequency is maintained for any length of time — say 

 some hours — still it must be remembered that teniporar\^ altera- 

 tion in the action of the heart may be brought on by violent ex- 

 ertion, by excitement, or even by indigestion after partaking too 

 freel)^ of food on an empty stomach, as in the case of a hunter after 

 a long day or a cart horse that has had many consecutive hours of 

 work, all of which must be taken into calculation in estimating 

 the importance and bearing of any deviation from the recognized 

 healthy standard of the pulse. 



Respiration. — One of the first things that attracts the atten- 

 tion of a practical horseman to the fact that there is something 

 wrong with an animal, is that the horse is blowing, but it is very 

 easy to attach either too much or too little impDrtance to the ir- 

 regular performance of this function; it has this advantage, how- 

 ever, that whereas other indications of present or coming illness 

 might easily be overlooked until well established, the acceleration 

 of the performance of the act of breathing generally commences 

 as soon as the horse begins to feel unwell, and in this way it 

 serves as a warning to the stableman that some attention is called 

 for; under such circumstances the first thing to do is to take the 

 temperature and then the pulse; the best place to observe the 

 number, and in a certain degree, the character of the respirations is 

 the flank; the normally healthy horse breathes as a rule thirteen 

 times in sixty s2conds. While in health there is a fairly uniform re- 

 lationship between the act of breathing and the pulsation of the 

 heart, because of the interchange of chemical products which 



