CHAP. I.] ON HIGH FEEDING, CONSTITUTIONAL. 247 



fourth morning, or longer, as the animal may be 

 more or less relaxed. 



Even with this moderate employment of laxative 

 medicine, the kind of animal for which it is most 

 desirable will be very unfit to turn out to grass of 

 a sudden : as, on account of its delicacy, it will in 

 that case be more likely to acquire a small hectic 

 cough, which no one attends to, because of its 

 triviality, until time renders it chronic, with all 

 its attendant consequences. Roaring and broken 

 wind, are among these evils, and have already re- 

 ceived as much attention here as they separately 

 require. 



Frequently it happens that a horse has a con- 

 stitutional cough, or one which comes on upon high 

 feeding only. Again, a disposition to plethora will 

 produce the same kind of cough, but either seems 

 only an effort of nature to disburthen itself of some- 

 thing offensive. In this case, the rapid repletion 

 of blood drives it into the smaller vessels that line 

 the pipe, &c, and there cause the titillation which 

 after two or three efforts ends in cough, and so on 

 repeatedly. None but those which are in some 

 slight degree or other already afflicted with chronic 

 cough are ever so attacked, it is apprehended; indeed 

 we have frequently remarked how excellent a test 

 of " bad in the wind" was good feed, or a large 

 feed, with work upon it. In this case, the ad- 

 ministering of attenuants will thin the blood, and 

 give immediate relief. 



m 4 



