CAUSES ()!• (.LANDERS. '201 



2)ip, which proves a very destructive disease among thein. Hogs, 

 under similar circumstances, engender the husk, a species of pul- 

 monary phthisis. Even plants, unless they are occasionally sup- 

 plied with fresh and pure air, will wither away and die in our 

 greenhouses. These morbid consequences arise not from any defi- 

 ciency in the vital or oxygenous part of the air; for, it is found by 

 experiment, that there is proportionably as much oxygen in the 

 atmosphere of the closest alley in London as in that which encom- 

 passes the hills of Highgate. No ! these deleterious effects are 

 ascribable solely to the animal poisons contained in the atmosphere, 

 which are not only inhaled with the breath, but probably taken in 

 with the food also; be that as it may, however, through one or 

 both of these channels the poison becomes absorbed into the sys- 

 tem, corrupts the whole circulating mass, and breaks out in local 

 forms in various susceptible parts of the body. Therefore it is, 

 that, in the degree in which a stable is foul and heated, from want 

 of ventilation, we find its inhabitants the subjects of glanders, farcy, 

 ophthalmia, &c. We seldom receive these cases from gentlemen's 

 stables, because in general they are well-constructed, and kept 

 clean, and do not contain many horses ; but in collieries, breweries, 

 post-houses, coach establishments, &c., where the stables are filthy 

 from the dung and urine which stagnate in cavities in the pave- 

 ment, for want of proper sewers to carry them off, and where the 

 men are suffered to add to the mischief by plugging up every air- 

 crevice they can find, we are continually witnessing the ravages 

 of these very formidable diseases. Farmers' stables, though no 

 better or even worse in their construction, do not appear to turn 

 out so many glandered subjects; a fact that admits of reconciliation 

 with what has been advanced, from the circumstance of their stables 

 being in general very capacious, and many of them in too ruinous 

 a state to admit of exclusion of the external air. The Professor 

 was first led to adopt this notion of the spontaneous origin of 

 glanders and farcy from an occurrence in our cavalry service which 

 came to his knowledge. Many years ago (I believe about 1796) 

 there was an extensive encampment on Dover heights, from which 

 the horses could not be removed until the autumnal season was far 

 advanced, in consequence of the stables intended for their reception 

 VOL. III. E e 



