644 THE PEOPLE'S FARM: AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



And this vapor is not pure water. It holds in solution a 

 considerable amount of carbonic acid and some animal matter, 

 3 parts in 1,000, which the best authorities now hold to be 

 an albuminous substance in a state of decomposition. The 

 changes of air and food and tissue in the processes of assimila- 

 tion and depuration or throwing off refuse, are wonderful and 

 essential to animal life and health. If we better understood the 

 nature of this process, there would not be such a neglect of the 

 means of securing to our families and herds and flocks an ample 

 supply of pure air that can be had without money and without 

 price, if we will but allow it to come in. Of the hydrogen 

 which food contains only about one-eight to one-tenth passes 

 from the system by other excretions, the remaining seven- 

 eights or nine-tenths being exhaled in the condition of watery 

 vapor from the lungs. 



Predisposing Causes of Disease. The lungs absorb 

 continuously volatile matters diffused through the air. This is 

 easily shown by the inhalation of turpentine affecting the urine. 

 If we consider the astonishing effect of some substances when 

 brought into relation with the blood in the gaseous form, we will 

 realize in some degree the importance of preventing their inhala- 

 tion by our animals. The inhalation of a few hundredths of a 

 grain of arseniuretted hydrogen will prove fatal, causing the 

 symptoms of poisoning with arsenic. Its effects on a human sub- 

 ject are not so violent as on some other animals. One-fifteen- 

 hundreth part will destroy a bird, and one-eighth-hundredth part 

 suffices to kill a dog, and one-two-hundred-and-fiftieth part is 

 fatal to a horse. 



Sulphuretted hydrogen and hydro-sulphuret of ammonia are 

 given off from most forms of decaying animal and vegetable 

 matter, and when confined, as in sewers, we have many in- 

 stances of death caused by entering them. Carbonic-acid gas, 

 which so abounds in our stables, is absorbed by the lungs of 

 animals, and exerts a really poisonous influence. " The con- 

 tinued respiration of an atmosphere charged with exhalations 

 from the lungs and skin, is among the most potent of all the 

 predisposing causes of disease," says Carpenter. 



