DISRASES OF RESPIRATORY PASSAGES AND CRGANS. 87 
the form of carbonic acid gas, almost as destructive to animality 
as that issuing from its great prototype proves to vegetation. 
The stable atmosphere being pure, and the lungs in working 
order, the blood is well arterialized, capable of supplying the 
waste of the animal machine and renovating its tissues. On the 
other hand, should the atmosphere be impure, it fails to vitalize 
the bluod. The latter is unfit for the purpose of nutrition, and 
may be considered a non-supporter of vitality. Hence the need 
of pure air, the breath of life. 
But are horses always furnished with pure air? Let the own- 
ers of unventilated, crowded, filthy, down-cellar and low-roofed 
stables answer. Let those who have stables in the region of 
swamp, sewer, and stagnant poo!s of water answer. In such lo- 
cations disease and death run riot, and the noble companion of 
man, instead of being within the ramparts of the science of life, 
is on the margin of deatl’s domain. He may exist for severa. 
days without food and water, yet the consequent result is nothing 
when compared to that occasioned by breathing an atmosphere 
highly charged with emanations arising from his own body ex- 
erements and decomposing bedding. 
A horse is said to consume in the lungs, in the course of twen- 
four hours, ninety-seven ounces of carbon, furnished by venons 
hlood, In order to perform this feat, he requires 190 cubic feet 
of oxygen. Now, suppose there are ten horses occupying the sta- 
ble. They require, in the same time, 1,900 cubic feet of oxygen, 
and consume 970 ounces of carbon. They are supposed, also, te 
give out from the lungs a volume of carbonic acid gas equal te 
that of the oxygen inspired; and supposing the atmosphere to 
be saturated with only five per centum of the former, it is a non- 
supporter of life. Hence, a horse shut up in an unventilated 
stable must, sooner or later, become the subject of disease. The 
evil may be postponed, but the day of reckoning is sure and <er- 
tain. 
Diseases, such as horse-ail, influenza, catarrh, strangles, and 
glanders, often originate and prevail to an alarming extent in 
the unventilated stable and pest spot; while in other locations, 
favorable to the free and full play of vital operations, the favored 
ones scerm to enjoy a remarkable immunity from the prevailing 
disease, or epizodtic. 
Stablemen and husbandmen are often led to remark, that whee 
