ON THE CAUSE OF ROARING. 
15 
much limited the sphere of its usefulness. Veterinary authors dis¬ 
regarded it; schools and lecturers have been apathetic, and have 
not as yet instituted special dissections among their students of 
this very critical region of morbid anatomy. But that which was 
a great fact in 1838 is no less a fact in 1848; and I have by my 
individual researches witnessed a series of confirmatory cases, and 
have accumulated a volume of circumstances bearing upon this 
deteriorating scourge, which too often, for the credit of our pro¬ 
fession, consigns the counterpart of Eclipse himself to the shafts 
of the street cab. The following is one of my most recent cases, 
which you are at liberty to publish in the next VETERINARIAN, 
should you think it worth while:— 
Case. —A bay gelding, thorough bred, seven years old, of hunting 
substance, was purchased by an eminent barrister of Mr. Anderson, 
as a “ roarer,” about the year 1840 : he worked in this gentleman’s 
cabriolet, also occasionally in double harness, and finally in a light 
brougham, for six consecutive years, always shewing high working 
condition. While trotting in harness on the flat, at the rate of ten 
miles an hour, very little could be heard of his respiration; but 
upon ascending a moderate hill it was always necessary to slacken 
the pace: when riding in saddle, a brisk canter on level ground 
would at all times, and under all circumstances, instantly proclaim 
the existence of the malady by a roaring noise in his respiration. 
His owner again consulted me in September last, 1848, when 
I was obliged to condemn the horse for incurable chronic lameness. 
He was stuck in my presence, avoiding the poll-axe to the head. 
The lungs, with the other contents of the chest, diaphragm, and 
abdominal viscera, were closely examined, and found to be sound, 
except that the liver was pale; the trachea and larynx were of the 
full caliber, and the larynx, with its muscles, presented the usual 
normal appearances. Upon removing the head from the neck, and 
detaching the lower jaw, the velum palati was dissected off; then 
upon resting the incisor teeth on the ground, and looking through 
the large foramen, it was at once apparent that there was not an 
equality of area or capacity for the passage of air on each side of 
the septum nasi. 
By carefully sawing longitudinally and transversely, the nasal 
bones were cautiously detached without making a breach into the 
anterior turbinated bones, or in the least disturbing the position of 
the septum. This proceeding disclosed a permanent though par¬ 
tial stricture of the left nasal fossa, occasioned by dilatation of both 
the left turbinated bones, anterior and posterior, throughout their 
whole extent, not by angular abrupt projection, but by uniform in¬ 
crease of their dimensions; to which was superadded a considerable 
chronic thickening of the pituitary membrane, lining both chambers 
of the left air-passage of the face, accompanied by an adventitious 
