120 
THOUGHTS ON BROKEN WIND. 
question with me, whether food of a dry and stimulating quality, 
continued in use for a long time, may not have had a great 
deal to do with the original disease of the stomach. Was ever 
a case of broken wind known among horses that had never 
left the grass field? May it not be possible to account for the 
diseased action set up in the stomach partly in this way? A 
horse in his natural state feeds wholly on grass, a .diet which in 
itself possesses so little nutriment, that his jaws are obliged to 
work for his living, and he is consequently eating, for twenty 
hours out of twenty-four, of an easily soluble food ; and all 
this time the salivary glands are in constant action, mixing their 
juices with the food, and doubtless performing some wonderful 
chemical part in the process of digestion and nutrition. But, 
in the stabled horse, how is it ? His food is dry, and of a 
highly stimulating quality, while the air he breathes is impure. 
His ration of corn is quickly dispatched, and, instead of twenty 
hours in which, in a state of nature, the saliva would be pouring 
* into his stomach, the time occupied is perhaps four hours. May 
not this induce disease in the stomach ? Is the salivary liquid of 
so little use in the digestive process, then, that it can be dispensed 
with ? May we not rather reasonably infer that our dry system 
of feeding has something to do with disease of stomach, and 
then become the origin of broken wind ? Do we not always 
find thirst a prominent symptom ? May not crib-biting be 
frequently due to this—namely, a diseased action set up in the 
stomach, which causes the elimination of gas, and a feeling, 
perhaps, akin to heart-burn in man ? But to return to the 
subject. There are two symptoms which strike us most forcibly, 
namely, the state of the breathing, which is apparently spas¬ 
modic in its nature, and the wheezing sound usually heard at 
the chest in expiration, denoting a bronchial membrane secreting 
a viscid mucus. It appears feasible that we should give relief, if 
we can act upon either or both of these symptoms. The agents 
which would have a tendency to relieve the partly spasmodic 
breathing would be sedatives and opiates, or perhaps the two 
combined. Digitalis acts surprisingly in some cases in quiet¬ 
ing the breathing of a broken-winded horse, and also opium. 
Camphor also acts partly as a sedative, and also promotes a 
secretion for the mucous membrane of the lungs, and alters and 
thins its character. 
Still, as we have seen from what has gone before, that the dis¬ 
ease is not purely spasmodic, but depends on some morbid struc¬ 
tural changes which embarrass the circulation or respiration, and 
that thus, of necessity, the abdominal muscles are called into 
greater play, it is quite evident that we cannot expect to do 
much good by any mode of treatment applied merely to the 
