VARIOUS ARTICLES IN “THE VETERINARIAN.” 
355 
in the hour ? and there lies the secret. I should say the average 
rate of carriage and riding horses in France does not reach five 
miles in the hour. 
P. 99, (Abstract) — Mr. Brough’s paper on Acute Indiges- 
tion, or Stomach Staggers, appears to me a most able produc- 
tion, and I regret that it could not be given at length. A cheap 
copy of it, together with the additional remarks of yourself and 
others, would be a God-send to farmers and road-waggon-horse 
owners — that is to say, if they would read it. Your allusion 
(p. 103) to the effect on respiration and inspiration of a loaded 
stomach, strengthens my supposition, that the general absence 
of broken wind in horses in France, is to be attributed to the 
speedy discharge of the stomach, occasioned by the lax state of 
the bowels from the relaxing nature of the food. I am quite 
sure I have never seen in France the fseces of a horse in hard, 
dark-coloured balls, as we generally see those of hard-working and 
highly-fed ones in our own country — very much, as Abernethy 
used to say, resembling gingerbread nuts. On the contrary, it 
has more the consistency of cow-dung. I have good reason to 
believe, that what you gentlemen call stercoral colic, the most 
dangerous, I believe, of all, is of rare occurrence in this part of 
France, unless with very old horses; and in all others except the 
vine departments, where they eat the clippings of the vine- 
yards. 
N.B. I have never seen French horses eat what we call chaff, 
by which is implied two kinds of food ; one, cut straw and hay, 
or clover, mixed; the other, the husk of the wheat berry, which 
I consider very likely to produce this sort of colic. English 
farmers, however, often give it their horses, on the principle, I 
suppose, that “ what won’t poison will fatten, and what won’t 
fatten will fill up.” Mr. Chaplin, the coach proprietor, told me 
in the room in which I am now writing, that he is the only exten- 
sive London coach proprietor who does not give his horses cut 
fodder, called chaff. Query, is he right or wrong ? He himself 
appeared in doubt; and I think it would be well if the subject of 
dietetics were oftener treated on by the profession, being an 
interesting feature in what one of them — Mr. Percivall, I think — 
calls “medical zoology.” Positive science on these matters, — 
the influence of food and air # on animals, — may, perhaps, never 
be attained ; but much good would be the result of the discus- 
sion of them by able pens. They are the irritamenta malorum , 
* I have not seen the Essay on the Atmosphere of my old acquaintance, 
Mr. Lucas, of Atherstone, nor, indeed, Mr. Lucas himself, since we assisted 
in carrying* Mr. Osbaldiston from the field when he broke his leg* in a 
fall. 
