THOUGHTS ON BROKEN WIND. 17 
here : I think I have made a sufficient number of them to insti¬ 
gate us to a most careful search of the condition of the heart and 
its bloodvessels in horses dying of broken wind. 
The only case I can call to mind bearing at all on this, was 
that of a mare which recently became broken winded under 
my immediate notice, during the progress of whose disease I 
found the circulation was always disturbed, which rendered it 
probable it might have been of this nature. 
A chestnut mare, eight years old, had been subject to what 
mav be called a stable cough for about six months, and was 
reported to me to be suddenly seized with violent fits of cough¬ 
ing, threatening suffocation. I visited her, and found her looking 
uncommonly well, and feeding as usual, and lively in the stable; 
but on attempting to move her.about, she was seized with spas¬ 
modic fits of coughing of a most violent description. There 
was neither discharge from the nose, nor sore throat. The coat 
was fine, and glossy as silk. The only symptom at all peculiar, 
beyond the spasmodic and suppressed nature of the cough, was 
in the pulse, which was full, beating at 42, and intermittent 
at every fourth stroke. I prognosticated broken wind from the 
commencement, and treated accordingly, by dieting, alterative 
and sedative medicine, cool stable, &c. But it is unnecessary 
further to enter into the treatment. The spasmodic cough 
continued, and the character of the pulse remained exactly the 
same for two months, when I thought the symptoms were 
a little relieved, with the exception of a slight difference in the 
duration of the expiratory, as compared with the inspiratory 
movement. Up to that period I had not noticed any peculiar 
rale in the chest. In another month the mare became perfectly 
broken winded, and the mucous rale was then very perceptible, 
while the pulse always maintained its intermittent character. 
I wish she had died, that I might have examined her; but she 
lived to be cast and sold. May not this have been a case of 
hypertrophy of the heart, disease of the semi-lunar valve of 
the right side ? The lungs are usually found pale, with a 
blanched appearance of the transverse muscle of the trachea, 
and the lining membrane of the bronchi. 
May not enlarged bronchial tubes be present, and act as a 
cause 1 By the way, could enlarged or dilated bronchi have 
any thing to do with peculiar hollow-sounding coughs, which 
we sometimes have in horses (not in broken winded horses but 
in roarers) bearing an analogy to the nature of pectoriloquy 
in man ? 
Might not aneurism of the aorta cause broken wind, on the 
same principle as disease of the valves, viz. by the obstruction 
of blood in the lungs necessitating the aid of the abdominal 
VOL. XXV. D 
