Litter. 227 



in the habit of associating the notion of what is called a comfortable 

 stable, with the conviction of the propriety of our ordinary establislicd 

 discipline, which they deem essential to the well being* of their Horses 

 that a man who should propose the free circulation of air, the laying 

 aside the use of cloathing, and that Horses should stand through the 

 day time upon the pavement, and all this with the sole view of secur- 

 ing them against disease, would run the hazard, mther, of being con- 

 sidered a fit Inhabitant for St. Luke's or Bethlehem Hospital, than as 

 having pretensions to the possession of his rational faculties. Not 

 unfrequently indeed, it has been objected to me, that if my notions 

 on these points were not too hypothetical, we should certainly find a 

 much greater number of instances of moon-blindness. Farcy and 

 Glanders than we do ; inasmuch, as the stable system which I decry 

 is avow^edly that which is general, throughout Great Britain and Ire- 

 laiid. To which I answer, that all Glass-blowers do not die con- 

 sumptive, all Plumbers do not become paralytic, nor are all chim- 

 ney sweepers affected with cancer in the scrotum ; but, it will be 

 readily admitted by every man who is a competent judge of the facts, 

 that the occupations which these respective persons foHovv, occasion 

 the diseases to which they are peculiarly liable. And though I have 

 repeatedly insisted upon the prejudicial effects, of a superabundance 

 of heat in the air of stables, as the means of subjecting Horses to 

 rapid vicissitudes of temperature, which occasion so many fatal in- 

 flammatory diseases, yet I do not consider that the heat of the air 

 operates so much to their disadvantage, upon the large scale, as 

 the Volatile Alkali, with which it is in a manner saturated, in low con- 

 fined stables. And this is, in fact, the sole reason why glandered 

 Horses that have been a long time at grass^ and appear, on account 



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