a1C DADDS VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 
and filth are innoxious, in what does the value of our sanitur} 
regulations consist? Why do our city authorities spend so muct. 
money to purify the pestiferous cesspool and sewer, and to rid ow 
streets of accumulating rubbish and filth? Let human bc‘ngs 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 u: 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 
aanner, the local phenomena. Our readers are all aware that the 
aombined 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 
aeparate from the sensible parts; if the foot is already diseased, 
the separation is accelerated. Warm water has the same effect. 
Applied externally for any length of time, it relaxes and pros- 
trates; applied internaily, it relaxes and vomits. Hence tie 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 
anmentionable filth, are often resorted to as remedies for con- 
