DISEASES OF THE OX AND SHEEP. 567 



sons of labour must in many cases be supposed to have the best 

 of it, unless, indeed, the mental workers with whom we are now 

 contrasting them, take care to preserve their health by wise 

 attention to the necessity of regular exercise and the laws of 

 hygiene. If they do this, i.e. if they preserve the healthy mind 

 without detriment to the healthy body, then there cau be no 

 doubt that those who work with their brains live the best and 

 highest lives. Yet there is nothing more difficult than to com- 

 bine judiciously the two orders of work. Those who toil in the 

 mental spheres — and whether it be of high or low degree matters 

 but little, provided it be sedentary in character — those who are 

 confined to the stool and the desk, are very apt to lose in large 

 measure both the desire and the capacity for taking any pro- 

 minent part in the more active habits of lite. Herein lies 

 great danger. 



If there is any truth which requires more reiteration than 

 other truths in these days, it is that on no account should the 

 active side of life be lost sight of. Indeed, it will almost inva- 

 riably be found upon inquiry that those men and women who 

 excel even in mental pursuits do not forget the absolute necessity 

 of exercise for those who would preserve a good state of health 

 both of body and mind. There are many reasons why physical 

 work is essential to the preservation of health. One of these is 

 that the skin is thereby called into activity as an excreting 

 organ; and that if the skin does not act well, then a great deal 

 more work is thrown upon the kidneys than they can properly 

 perform. 



Among oxen, as well as among ourselves, the class of urinary 

 diseases is one of importance. Some may, perhaps, know that 

 in its first condition in the undeveloped human foetus each 

 kiduey is composed of separate lobules. At a later stage, 

 these lobules are united together to form the smooth-surfaced 

 kidney of the adult. Now, when we look upon the exterior 

 of the kidney of an ox and of certain other animals the 

 organ is seen to retain this lobulated condition — transitory in 

 the human being — throughout life. The kidneys of the ox, in 

 like manner with the urinary bladder, are large. The urine is 

 light yellow in colour, and, like that of other herbivorous animals, 

 it has an alkaline reaction, which may be easily shown by the fact 

 that reddened litmus paper, when dipped in this fluid, is turned 



