RUPTURE OF THE DIAPHRAGM. 
By Mr. J. M. Hales, Oswestry . 
To the Editor of The Veterinarian. 
Sir, 
If you think that this paper is worthy a place in your very use¬ 
ful journal, I shall be glad to see it there; and I hope the publi¬ 
cation of “ The Veterinarian” will form an sera in veterinary me¬ 
dicine, and that you will be able to show the world that it has 
some pretensions to be ranked amongst the liberal sciences, and 
that it is emerging from that ignorance and semi-barbarism, 
which by one-half the community is considered as attached to the 
name of Horse Doctor. 
I am, Mr. Editor, 
(with cordial wishes for your success,) 
Your obedient servant, 
Oswestry , Dec. 19, 1828. J. M. Hales. 
FOUR cases in which the Diaphragm was found to be ruptured 
after death, are recorded in past numbers of “The Veterinarian.” 
Of that reported in the number for March, it is highly probable 
that your theory is the correct one, viz. that a small opening in 
the diaphragm was the cause of the disordered respiration, and 
an extension of the rent produced death. In Mr. Cartwright’s 
cases, the other morbid appearances were sufficient to account for 
death, independent of the rupture of the diaphragm : it is, there¬ 
fore, problematical, whether such lesion was a cause of death, or 
existed as a mere accidental circumstance, produced in the last 
struggles. 
There is, however, one fact connected with these cases, well 
worthy noting,—that in three out of the four, the horses were de¬ 
cidedly broken-winded : and it becomes a question of some im¬ 
portance in a pathological point of view, how far disease, or par¬ 
tial rupture of the diaphragm, may occasionally exist as a cause 
of broken wind, or other disordered respiration. It is not, how¬ 
ever, my intention to pursue this subject, but to relate a case in 
which the diaphragm was extensively and fatally ruptured by its 
own vehement muscular contractions, in a horse previously in 
perfect health. During the unparalleled hot weather of part of 
July, 1825, a four-year old mare, belonging to a post-master in 
Oswestry, was, with three others, put to a gentleman’s carriage 
to go to Shrewsbury, a distance of eighteen miles. She had never 
been used as a riding-horse, but always worked in hand; but this 
day one of the postillions (about twelve stone) rode her, and they 
