4IC DADDS VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



riii] filth are innoxious, in what does the value of our sanitary 

 regulations consist? Why do our city authorities spend so much 

 money to purify the pestiferous cesspool and sewer, and to rid our 

 streets of accumulating rubbish and filth ? Let human beings wal- 

 low knee-deep in muck, and revel shoulder-deep in an atmosphere 

 saturated with ammoniacal and carbonic acid gases (as some horses 

 are compelled to), and death would run riot — our cities would be 

 converted into immense charnel-houses, fit receptacles for a race 

 of beings that would not adopt the means which reason and expe- 

 rience suggest for averting the calamity. 



Horses that have no better care than that alluded to, are in 

 close proximity with disease. That they are often found dead in 

 their stalls from the effects of carbonized blood I can testify, and 

 many more would die, only they are permitted to take a little of 

 the breath of life during the day, which, to some extent, dilutes 

 the poisonous gases with which their system has been saturated 

 during the night, and thus their life, which, under the best cir- 

 cumstances, is a weary toil, is prolonged. 



Without attempting to prove the general effects ui impure air 

 and filth on the system of a horse located in a stall from one to 

 two and a half feet deep of soft bedding, let us consider, in a brief 

 manner, the local phenomena. Our readers are all aware that the 

 combined action of heat and moisture tends to relax — enervates 

 the tissues of the body, and, if carried beyond a certain point, 

 ends in decomposition. Take, for example, a common poultice, 

 apply it to a horse's foot, and renew it as soon as it becomes dry. 

 In the course of two or three days the hoof will separate from 

 its matrix, the frog and heels soften, the tissues be in a state 

 of relaxation, and, if the poultice is continued, the hoof will 

 separate from the sensible parts ; if the foot is already diseased, 

 tne separation is accelerated. Warm water has the same effect. 

 .Applied externally for any length of time, it relaxes and pros- 

 trates ; applied internally, it relaxes and vomits. Hence the soft, 

 (which implies moist,) hot bedding, tends to create morbid action 

 in the feet, and whatever disease the horse may be predisposed to 

 in those parts will generally manifest itself. Some animals, how- 

 ever, escape the evils alluded to, owing to their insusceptibility ; 

 for disease of the foot can not occur without a susceptibility to it 

 and the application of a cause. Soft bedding, cow dung, and other 

 unmentionable filth, are often resorted to as remedies for con- 



