SPECIFIC DISEASES—THEIR VARIETIES AND THEIR TREATMENT.
BROKEN WIND.
CONVULSIVE SPASM, INDUCED BY FATIGUE, IN A BROKEN-WINDED HORSE.
Broken wind in the horse approaches very nearly to dry asthma in the human being. Man, however, can suit his work to his capabilities; but all horses have only one employment, which, to be sure, may differ in its intensity; still, the most afflicted animal always has to perform the severest kind of draught. Let any person propose that individuals having dry asthma should pull loaded trucks, to earn their bread or to purchase a right to live; the cruelty of such a proposition would be apparent to the dullest sense. Yet is it the horse's doom that, no matter with what disease it may be afflicted, the animal must work or die. Old or sick, weak or disabled, still the body's toil must earn the creature's food and the master's profit. Spasm or agony can excuse no pause; let the sufferer even slacken the space sufficiently to mitigate in some degree the pangs it endures, and the long whip, aided by the harsh voice of the driver, will urge the flagging cripple onward. The horse has no words to plead with; the signs of its distress are not understood; the law which assumes to protect it is a delusion; the animal is given up, helpless, friendless, and unpitied, to the almost unrestrained barbarity of its master. It is born doomed to live in solitude, to wear its life out under the goad, and to yield up existence in a knacker's yard.
"Broken wind" is a sad affliction; it is the more sad because no men but the very careless or the very poor will keep an animal thus diseased. The author has known it to be a frequent reason given by the better class of horse proprietors for having the life destroyed; which decision may have been quickened by the fact that the horse is generally old before this disease appears. In the knowledge of the writer there is no recorded instance of a colt having "broken wind." The malady is usually witnessed after the adult age has been attained, or during the latter period of life, whether the affection has been naturally induced or aggravated by the cruelty of man.
It is said to have been produced suddenly; thus a man has been reported to have ridden an untrained horse after the hounds, and so have provoked the disorder. Another is asserted to have galloped a nag with a stomach loaded either with food or water, and thus to have broken the wind. Doubtless the seeds of the disorder may by either process have been sown; but that the disease was fully developed after either incident, is more than doubtful.
The seat of this affliction is not confined to any one organ; its ravage is universal. No part escapes; that the entire animal economy can change all at once, like a trick in a Christmas pantomime, is a circumstance which has yet to be established. The malady is most general among the agricultural districts; the farmer's poor team, in many parts of England, seldom tastes much of that which can be taken to market. Cut grass constitutes its chief summer food; the coat is rarely groomed; the stable often left open, and only cleaned when manure is wanted. During the winter months the animals have to luxuriate in the strawyard; the body's abuse, in such horses, may readily lead to the body's degeneration. Green-meat will not support the strength, though upon it the life may be sustained. The occupiers of the soil would find it to their account, could the class be brought to bestow a little more attention upon their living property. The years of labor would be prolonged, and the activity of the laborer be quickened; fewer horses need then be kept, and the anxieties of the farmer would be lightened. Agricultural teams would not then be encountered slowly creeping along the highway, and sleeping as they journeyed. Care naturally begets pride, and worth generally resides where pride is exhibited. Increased value would reward the farmer, whose animals would not then so often present the spectacle of horses doing slow work, being touched in the wind.