632 BROKEN WIND. 



nent symptom, doubtless suggested to the older farriers the 

 name by which the malady is generally known in Britain. A 

 barbarous operation used to be performed, and we have 

 heard of its having been practised within the last ten or 

 fifteen years, to relieve the flatulence, and cure the broken 

 wind. It consisted in making an artificial anus, by passing 

 a red-hot iron into the rectum below the anus. 



Broken-winded horses become unfit for hard, quick, and 

 constant work. They wear out rapidly, and sometimes die 

 suddenly during exertion, from active congestion of the lungs 

 and haemoptysis. 



Post-mortem appearances. Delafond tells us that out of 

 fifty-four broken- winded horses which he examined, he found 

 forty-five with emphysema, including dilatation of the air- 

 cells of the lungs. One-fourth of the total number of cases 

 of broken wind are attended with other lesions. Bracy 

 Clark observed emphysema in a broken-winded mare as far 

 back as 1795. Coleman declared that broken wind was due 

 to a rupture of the air-cells, and that " in examining broken- 

 winded lungs we find the surface externally assuming all the 

 appearances of health ; though, if compared with lungs in a 

 normal state, we shall find them specifically lighter, arising 

 from their containing a quantity of air, which the last expira- 

 tion of the animal was unable to get rid of." M. Percivall 

 observed in two cases thickening of the mucous membrane 

 in the trachea and bronchial tubes, coupled with emphysema, 

 and in one case thickening of the mucous membrane of the 

 larynx, especially over the arytenoid cartilages. Several 

 observers have failed to discover any trace of emphysema in 

 some well-marked cases of broken wind, and it is now un- 

 doubted that the symptoms of the disease may occasionally 

 be due to the lesions of chronic bronchitis (Rodet, Percivall), 

 atrophy of the heart (Bartlet, Gibson, and several others), 



