Symptoms and Diagnosis of Chronic Roaring. CI 



imperceptible, but after a certain amount of exertion or 

 excitement — depending upon the stage of the disease— it 

 becomes audible as a faint whistling, rustling, or rattling 

 sound during the act of inspiration ; in some cases it may 

 not go beyond this, but in others, again — and they are the 

 large majority — it becomes louder and deeper, then more 

 acute, as the speed is accelerated and the exertion exalted : 

 passing by a series of intonations that are difficult to 

 describe, but which experience can alone assist in recog- 

 nising and defining as confirmed or chronic Roaring, and so 

 enable the expert to arrive at a conclusion as to the stage 

 the alterations in the larynx may have reached. 



In quite recent cases, or those in which the laryngeal 

 derangement is only slight, the morbid sound is usually 

 not heard unless the animal is put to a fast gallop ; and 

 sometimes at the commencement of the disease, the noise, 

 after being emitted for a short time, disappears if the 

 exertion be continued ; but if it is more pronounced and 

 louder at the end of a long gallop than at the commence- 

 ment, then the case may be regarded as one of confirmed 

 chronic Roaring. In such a case, the minimum of intensity 

 is an almost inaudible whistle or sifflement in inspiration, 

 which in time increases to a " filing," "rasping," or "sawing " 

 sound — the hruit de scie of the French hippologist, who, 

 in describing a Roarer, says, " le cheval scie du bois " — the 

 sawing respiratory sound being a very apt comparison with 

 that of wood- sawing, though in some instances it is more 

 like the sound produced by a saw-sharpener. The Germans 

 try to represent the sound phonetically by the word 

 " Chiemend." Percivall was not quite happy in describing 

 it. " With the whistler's note," he says, " we soon become 

 acquainted. Whoever has listened to the ' northern blast 

 rishing through a crack in the window-shutter,' need seek 

 no description of it. In this instance, the sibilation appears 

 to be produced by a continuous rush of air through some 

 narrow pass in the trachea or larynx ; it is seldom or never 



