34 



is used for storage purposes. The action of sunlight upon the 

 animals is to increase the red blood corpuscles and to stimulate 

 and strengthen all the organs of the body. Well-lighted stables 

 are invariably much dryer than dark ones. This is a distinct ad- 

 vantage in favor of keeping the stable clean and the animals in it 

 free from disease. The disease-producing microbes find much 

 more favorable conditions for retention of their vitality or growth 

 and multiplication where the atmosphere contains large quantities 

 of moisture, rather than when it is dry. Ordinary drying is, 

 in fact, all that is necessary to destroy some of the most danger- 

 ous germs. This does not apply equally to all; while Asiatic 

 cholera germs are quickly killed by drying, those of tuberculosis 

 are only slightly affected by it. 



Animals kept in dark, damp underground stables are much more 

 subject to disease than those kept under better sanitary conditions. 

 This applies to all domestic animals, but more especially to horses, 

 which soon become hidebound, rough-haired, and suffer from 

 coughs, colds, etc. 



Tuberculosis in cattle, glanders and influenza in horses, hog 

 cholera and swine plague in swine, and similar diseases, appear 

 more quickly, spread more rapidly and are much more fatal among 

 animals kept in dark, damp, underground stables than among those 

 kept in light, dry, airy barns. Simple wounds often become un- 

 healthy and gangrenous, leading to a fatal termination, among 

 animals under unsanitary conditions, whereas, upon those under 

 good hygienic surroundings, they heal quickly. In the first in- 

 stance they become quickly infected with the organism producing 

 suppuration, gangrene and blood poisoning, while in the second in- 

 stance no such infection occurs. 



Heat is one of the best disinfectants which it is possible to em- 

 ploy. All life, both animal and vegetable, is quickly destroyed 

 when subjected to the action of a high temperature. It may be 

 employed in one of several forms ; — a flame, dry heat or moist 

 heat. 



When it is advisable to absolutely destroy material contaminated 

 with infectious matter, there is no safer way to dispose of it than 

 by burning. Wood work, such as mangers, hay racks, stall par- 

 titions, floor, etc., that may have become thoroughly infected with 

 such material as the nasal discharge from glandered horses, is best 

 disposed of by burning. The bodies of animals dying of infectious 

 diseases which may be transmitted to other animals by eating the 

 flesh or by contact with the offal or discharges from the dead body, 

 are safely gotten rid of by cremation. Burning is preferable to 



