LITTER. 347 



smooth and glossy to satisfy the most fastidious. The over-heated air 

 of a close stable saves much of this grooming-, and therefore the idle 

 attendant unscrupulously sacrifices the health and safety of the horse. 



If the stable is close, the air will not only be hot, but foul. The 

 breathiuo- of every animal contaminates it ; and when, in the course of 

 the nio-ht with every aperture, even the key-hole, stopped, it passes again 

 and again through the lungs, the blood cannot undergo its proper and 

 healtliy change ; digestion cannot be so perfectly performed, and all the 

 functions of Tife are injured. Let the owner of the valuable horse think 

 of his passing twenty or twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours in 

 this debilitating atmosphere. Nature does wonders in enabling every 

 animal to accommodate itself to the situation in which it is placed, and 

 the horse that lives in the stable-oven suffers less from it than would 

 scarcely be conceived possible ; but he does not, and cannot, possess the 

 power and the hardihood which he would acquire under other circumstances. 

 The air of the improperly close stable is still further contaminated by 

 the urine and dung, which rapidly ferment in the heat, and give out 

 stimulating and unwholesome vapours. When a person first enters an 

 ill-managed stable, and especially early in the morning, he is annoyed not 

 only by the heat of the confined air, but by a pungent smell, resembling 

 hartshorn ; and can he wonder at the inflammation of the eyes, and the 

 chronic cough, and the inflammation of the lungs, with which the animal, 

 who has been shut up in this vitiated atmosphere all night, is often aUacked ; 

 or if glanders and farcy should occasionally break out in such 'stables ? 

 It has-been ascertained by chemical experiment, that the urine of the horse 

 contains in it an exceedingly large quantity of hartshorn ; and not only so, 

 but that, influenced by the heat of a crowded stable, and possibly by other 

 decompositions that are going forward at the same time, this ammoniacal 

 vapour begins to be rapidly given out almost immediately after the urine 

 is voided. 



When disease begins to appear among the inhabitants of these ill- 

 ventilated places, is it wonderful that it should rapidly spread among them, 

 and that the plague-spot should be, as it were, placed on the door of such 

 a stable ? When distemper appears in spring or in autumn, it is in very 

 many cases to be traced first of all to such a pest-house. It is peculiarly 

 fatal there. The horses belonging to a small establishment, and rationally 

 treated, have it comparatively seldom, or have it lightly ; but, among the 

 inmates of a crowded stable, it is sure to display itself, and there it is most 

 of all fatal. The experience of every veterinary surgeon, and of every large 

 proprietor of horses, will corroborate this statement. Agriculturists should 

 bring to their stables the common sense which directs them in the usual 

 concerns of life; and should begin, when their pleasures and their property 

 are so much at stake, to assume that authority, and to enforce that obedi- 

 ence, to the lack of which is to be attributed the greater part of bad stable- 

 management and horse-disease. Of nothing are we more certain, than 

 that the majority of the maladies of the horse, and those of the worst and 

 most fatal character, are directly or indirectly to be attributed to the 

 unnatural heat of the stable, and the sudden change of the animal from a 

 high to a low, or from a low to a high temperature. 



LITTER. 



Having spoken of the vapour of hartshorn, which is so rapidly and so 

 plentifully given out from the urine of a horse in a heated stable, we take 

 next into' consideration the subject of litter. The first caution is frequently 

 to remove it. The early extrication of gas shews the rapid putrefaction of 



