No. 4.] STABLE MANAGEMENT. 173 



figures can express, tells us that, if we had a perfect knowl- 

 edge of the laws of life and could practically apply this 

 knowledge in a perfect system of hygienic rules, disease 

 would be impossible. That such perfect knowledge is not 

 likely to be obtained, or, rather, if obtained is not likely 

 to be acted upon, we can have no reasonable doubt. Ho 

 has, however, defined hygiene as "the art of preserving 

 health." It aims at rendering growth more perfect, decay 

 less rapid, life more vigorous and death more remote. 



We have, in dealing with this subject, to consider, with 

 regard to animals, the air they breathe, the water they 

 drink, the food they are fed on, the stables they are placed 

 in, the soil they live on, the exercise and labor that they 

 undergo, their individual care and management, and, lastly, 

 the prevention and eradication of the infectious and con- 

 tagious diseases from which they suffer. 



AVater. 



It is only within recent years that the necessity for a 

 supply of pure and wholesome water for man has been 

 recognized. Before the light of scientific investigation into 

 obscure causes of epidemic diseases was brought to bear, 

 but little attention had been paid to the subject. People 

 drank surface water from polluted rivers and ditches, or 

 from wells in close vicinity to cesspools and other recepta- 

 cles for decomposing organic matter, and such a thing was 

 considered by no means dangerous. Science, however, has 

 shown that a large body of people cannot with impunity drink 

 wa^er containing the essence of their own excreta, and con- 

 siderable light has of late years been thrown upon the dis- 

 eases which are introduced by the agency of impure water. 

 Respecting the part played by impure water in the produc- 

 tion of disease among the lower animals we have at present 

 very little evidence. I think it is undoubted that man 

 sutlers from more disease as the result of this than do the 

 lower animals ; but I am equally convinced that horses and 

 cattle, no less than their masters, require, for the most per- 

 fect bodily condition, a pure and wholesome supply of 

 water. However that may be, as a simple matter of 



