64 
THOUGHTS ON BROKEN WIND. 
acute inflammatory attacks of lungs are extremely rare, even 
unknown. We are also aware that most usually there is a 
peculiar wheezing to be heard in the chest of broken winded 
horses, as if the air were obstructed by mucus, which is really 
the case. Where this wheezing could be heard, I would infer 
that the disease had supervened on bronchitis; but if it were 
absent, that it depended on some other organic change, which 
embarassed the circulation or respiration. We also know that 
the disease is heralded for a long time by the peculiar bronchitic 
cough, and accompanied or preceded usually by symptoms of 
indigestion ; although this symptom is not constant, for some¬ 
times the appearances of indigestion succeed the attacks of 
broken wind ; the lungs and stomach being mutually dependent 
on each other. How common is it for a crib-biter to become 
broken winded, and what is this disease but indigestion ] 
Cases of broken wind are recorded as coming on suddenly 
by exercise ON A FULL STOMACH ; the pression on the lungs 
during such an act, it is supposed, produces emphysema. If 
these cases had been carefully noticed, I have no doubt they 
had been in a state of preparation for the event for some time 
previous; else, I cannot conceive any exercise that could produce 
such morbid lesions as we find in the lungs of broken winded 
horses without causing rupture and haemorrhage of the lungs. 
Although we have not cases of pure broken wind following on 
acute attacks of the air-passages, yet occasionally, during such 
attacks, we have cases simulating the symptoms in a most 
remarkable manner. Practitioners will call to mind many of 
them. I had one lately, under the form of influenza, of a most 
violent character (in fact, acute bronchitis), and for two days I 
could not decide the point satisfactorily, in my own mind, 
whether it was not a case of broken wind. The reader who 
wishes to refer to the case will find it in the November number 
of The VETERINARIAN for 1851, under the head “Influenza.” 
However, this animal recovered from all that he had resembling 
broken wind, perfectly, as these kind of cases usually do, though 
he afterwards died from laminitis. On examination of him, I 
found the usual effects of acute bronchitis in the thickened 
inflamed membrane, &c. &c.; but of the diaphragm the anterior 
surface was studded all over with spots of ecchymosis, and, as 
far as I could make out, thus far was the organ implicated in 
the symptoms simulating broken wind, though the rationale of 
the case I do not profess to understand. 
May the inhalation of noxious gases create broken wind 1 
I never knew a case of the kind. I have heard of horses having 
been confined very closely together, without proper ventilation, 
being affected with symptoms something similar to broken 
