32 
ON BROKEN WIND. 
horse draweth his wind short, and by little at once; he will turn his 
head often toward the place grieved, and groaneth in his breathing ; 
he is afraid to cough, and yet cougheth as though he had eaten 
small bones. The same Theomnestus healed a friend’s horse of 
his, whose lungs were fretized, or rather broken, as he saith, by 
continual eating of salt, with the manner of cure here following. 
Let the horse have quiet and rest, and then let him blood in the 
haunches, where the veins appear most ; and give him to drink, 
in the space of seven days, barley, or rather oats sodden in goat’s 
milk, or if you can get no milk, boil in water, and put therein 
some thick collops of lard and of deer’s suet, and let him drink 
that ; and let his common drink in winter season be the decoction of 
wheatmeal, and in summer time the decoction of barley, and this, 
as he saith, will bind his lungs again together. 
“ Vegelius utterly disallovveth letting of blood in any such disease 
as this is, and also all manner of sharp medicines, for fear of pro- 
voking the cough, by means whereof the broken places can never 
heal perfectly. And, therefore, neither his medicines nor meat 
should be harsh, but smooth, gentle, and cooling. The best medi- 
cine that may be given him at all times is this* : — “ Take of fen- 
greke and of lynsede, of ech half a pounde ; of gum dragant, of 
masticke, of mirre, of suger, and of fytch floure, of ec.he one ounce — 
let all these things be beaten into fine powder, and then infused 
one whole night in a sufficient quantity of warm water, and the 
next day give him a quart of this, lukewarm, putting thereunto 
two or three ounces of oil of roses, continuing so to do many days 
togither; and if the disease be new, this will heal him. Yea, and 
it will ease him very much though the disease be old, which then 
is thought incurable. And in winter season, so long as he standeth 
in the stable, let him drink no cold water, and let his meat be clean 
without dust ; but in summer season it were best to let him run 
to grass. For so long as he eateth grass , a man shall scarcely 
perceive this disease! Thus much of broken lungs." 
Whatever opinion we may form with regard to the writings of 
our fathers in veterinary science' — however much we may deplore 
their ignorance with regard to disease and the methods of cure, 
yet, in this instance, we must give them credit for an accurate 
knowledge of the site of the disease which we call broken wind — 
no such misnomer occurs in the pages of Blundeville. He care- 
fully describes cough — the inward and wet cough — the dry cough — 
rotten lungs — shortness of breath — pursike consumption — broken 
lung, but no broken wind. His idea of the origin of the disease, 
viz. that it consisted in a rupture of some portion of the lungs, is 
I have given this as written by Blundeville. 
