290 HORSE AND MAN. 



and a trap-door. At the end is the door, and on one 

 side is a little window. Opposite the door is the 

 manger, and above the manger is an open rack, into 

 which hay can be pushed from above. 



The floor slopes from the manger so as to carry 

 off moisture into a gutter which runs at right angles 

 with it, and then the builder thinks that he has pro- 

 duced everything that a horse ought to require. In 

 point of fact, however, if he had deliberately set him- 

 self to undermine the horse's health, he could not 

 have been more successful. 



But no one expects that the builder of a stable 

 is likely to know anything of the structure of a 

 horse, or, if he did, to depart from the rules of 

 custom. 



The builder has no idea of the true functions of 

 respiration, or of the poisonous character of air that 

 has been once breathed. So he makes no provision for 

 the admission of fresh atmosphere nor for the escape 

 of foul air. He neither knows nor cares that the air 

 which has been breathed, additionally laden with the 

 pungent ammoniacal vapour that fills an unventilated 

 stable, passes through the hay in the rack and thence 

 into the hay in the loft, infecting them both. 



It is nothing to him that lungs were not intended 

 to breathe effete air or the vapour of ammonia. It 

 is nothing to him that the small size of the windows 



