10 VENTILATION AND LIGHT. 
From the exterior of such premises you may judge of the 
state of the interior, which on entering will be found to be 
filled with unpleasant odours, the thermometer standing at 
seventy in the depth of winter, whilst on all sides not 
only the olfactory nerves but the eyes are assailed by the 
effects of ammoniacal gas produced by the imprisoned 
ordure and urine. 
The sensation is one to make the visitor only anxious to 
escape into the open air once more. If we are to judge, then, 
by the result produced upon the human being by contact for 
a few minutes only with the contaminated air that pervades 
the whole place; what must be the feeling of the wretched 
horse that has to live in it, or rather to die by inches, or 
become blind from such pernicious treatment ? 
To a superficial observer, and even at times to owners, 
this state of things has a fascination. The horses ap- 
pear with coats like satin, full of flabby fat (engendered 
by heat) often mistaken for muscle. Such people never 
think of the weakness, the languor, the loss of appetite, 
from which the poor horses are suffering, as the result of 
continually inhaling and re-breathing the same poisoned 
-atmosphere; every day, and day by day intensifying its 
more deadly effects on animal existence. Pearl-like drops 
are seen in countless numbers standing on most projections, 
even on the hairs of the rugs, on the side walls, the ceiling ; 
in fact, every particle of the furniture of the stables is wet 
and clammy with the same impurely heated air. 
My own views on the question of ventilation are embodied 
in a book on this subject, which I remember to have read 
some twenty years ago. It is entitled Practical Ventilation, 
by R. S. Burns, and I cannot do better than here submit 
an extract from it :— 
