8 
ON ROARING. 
ally enfeeble the elastic powers of the cartilages and their ligaments, 
and the result is, permanent deformity of the larynx or windpipe, 
or both together. 
The tight reining-in of the Heads of young horses, for 
any length of time together, and particularly in subjects whose 
necks have not, by regular gradations of tightness of the reins, 
been brought to bear the constraint with comparative impunity, is 
a practice at all times highly censurable, and one that has too often, 
in times past, given us reason to date the origin of roaring from 
the breaking of a colt, or his first lessons in the manege. Such 
harsh treatment, however, is now, in all well-conducted riding- 
schools, I believe, pretty well abolished; leaving us no further 
grounds for apprehension on this score, unless it be in the case of 
a colt whose head is so unmeetly set on, or whose neck is so 
straight or short and thick, that, without a force and constraint 
likely to be productive of injury, there is no possibility of getting 
the animal’s head into its “ proper place.” 
Mr. W. H. Goodwin, veterinary surgeon to the Queen, informs me, that, 
during his professional avocations at St. Petersburgh, his attention was espe¬ 
cially drawn to several horses, who, by himself and others, had been declared 
to be roarers, in consequence of their having got rid of their complaints in the 
manege. These horses, it would appear, roared in consequence of distortion 
produced by previous unnatural flexure of the windpipe; and this distortion 
the Russian system of equitation—which consisted in the elevation of the 
head and projection of the nose—was well adapted to counteract, and, in pro¬ 
cess of time, remove. 
Wasting of the Muscles of the Larynx. —Some years 
have now elapsed since it was first discovered that the larynges of 
roarers occasionally presented us with the singular phenomenon of 
the muscles on one side being wasted away or absorbed, while, on 
the other, they appeared to exhibit unusual volume and redness, 
and strength of fibre. Since the time of discovery, every one 
almost has met with cases of the kind; but no person seems as 
yet to have given an explanation of this new piece of pathology. 
My view of the case is this:— 
Explanation of the above. —Since the following explana¬ 
tion was written, I have met with an account of a very ingenious 
and satisfactory experiment performed by my friend Mr. John 
Field, which will be related hereafter, wherein he has conclusively 
shewn, that this wasting of the muscles may be the effect of the 
deprivation of nervous influence. I must still, however, continue 
to think that there is another way in which the change may take 
place, and that is as follows :— 
Horses in general, as every man in the habit of riding and 
driving knows, have what is called ‘'a hard and a soft side” to their 
mouths; and there is no situation in which they are more likely to 
