134 VETERINARY HOMCEOPATHY, 



leave a free onward course for the blood; but during the interval 

 of rest, between the heart contractions, when the blood would 

 otherwise recede backward, they fill out and so offer a complete 

 barrier to a backward motion. 



It will thus be clear that any interference with the healthy con- 

 ditions of the walls of the heart, or with the valves that divide one 

 compartment of the organ from another, or yet again, with the 

 arteries or veins, must of necessity serioush' impede the regu- 

 lar and continuous flow of blood through the system. At the 

 same time it is hardly necessary to add that any obstruction to the 

 maintenance of a regular and continuous circulation of the vital 

 fluid cannot be other than seriously detrimental to health, bearing 

 which in mind, we shall proceed to consider the various phases of 

 disorder to which the heart and its subsidiary conduits or tubes 

 are liable. We are strongly of opinion that in the horse the heart 

 is the seat of disease far oftener than is generally admitted; several 

 prominent cases have come under our notice in which valuable 

 racehorses, whose running in public was altogether inexplicable, 

 were the subjects of heart disease, with reference to which, had 

 they been professionally examined with a view to determine the 

 state of this organ, it is highly probable there would have been no 

 difficulty in determining what was really wrong; as it was, all 

 sorts of reasons were assigned for the failure of these aniiiials to 

 win races which were considered on some of their form to be abso- 

 lutely at their mercy; some attributed their " shutting up " in the 

 middle of a race to temper, others to the belief that they were 

 " non-stayers " — the fact really being that the valves of the heart 

 were diseased and were therefore vmable to properl}' fulfill their 

 functions; the heart itself, in consequence, was overloaded with 

 blood, and a sense of suffocation experienced which absolutely de- 

 prived the animals of the power to keep up top speed for the nec- 

 essary distance; ultimately each of these horses died suddenly, one 

 of them just after he had passed the winning post, to the imminent 

 risk of the jocke}^ who fortunateh^ however, escaped with nothing 

 more serious than a severe shaking; these facts, however, go to 

 prove that the possibility of heart disease, even when health gen- 

 erally appears good, should not be overlooked. The methods of ex- 

 amination to determine whether the organ is affected or not cannot, 

 in the case of a layman, be other than very restricted; at the same 



