296 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



mountains, the disease is almost unknown. So notorious is 

 this that dealers are in the habit of buying in Southern 

 France, at a low price, horses that have had but one attack 

 of ophthalmia and of transporting them to Catalonia where, 

 as a rule, they escape any further seizure. 



The effect of a damp, sunless, relaxing climate, however, 

 is productive of a heavy, lymphatic stamp of horse, which is 

 always more predisposed to affections of this kind than the 

 horses of fine fiber and nervous temperament. In this re- 

 spect the North American continent should be more favor- 

 able to the horse than the moister climate of England, being 

 an approximation toward the climate of Syria and North 

 Africa, the cradle of all that is excellent in horse flesh; yet 

 even in the United States a low, marshy, damp, and cloudy 

 region is to be avoided when it is wanted to develop the 

 highest speed or the greatest- vigor and endurance. Places 

 and climates that prove most favorable for the raising of 

 meat-producing animals are most likely to deteriorate the 

 horse by developing a loose, open texture of bone, a bulky 

 but soft, flabby muscle, and an undue tendency to sluggish- 

 ness and fattening. The lymphatic temperament thus indi- 

 cated is that which especially predisposes to ophthalmia, and 

 if such young animals are retained in such a climate they 

 are particularly liable to suffer. 



Close stables are hurtful in various ways. The relaxing 

 effect of the stable upon the young horse is always marked; 

 but this is especially so when, as in dealers' stables, the air 

 is kept extra hot to produce a fine coat. The damp rising 

 from the lungs and skin of the animals and from the dung 

 and urine is especially injurious because of its relaxing 

 effects, but still more so because of the active decomposition 

 which it maintains in the organic matter floating in the air 

 or lodged on the walls, floors and woodwork. The effect of 

 this is seen in the great predominance of diseases of the air 

 passages in young horses that have been recently stabled; 

 and upon animals predisposed to ophthalmia the same dis- 

 turbing influence tends similarly to the development of that 

 affection. Apart from the debility and fever which this 

 change brings about it will be observed that the air of the 



