2o6 Veterinary Medicine. 



In this connection, the statement of the air breathed by an ox 

 per hour and that supplied him on board a ship with insufi&cient 

 ventilation or none may be instructive. The ox takes in with 

 each breath about 5 liters of air. This is at the rate of 50 liters 

 per minute, or 3,000 per hour = 105.9 cubic feet. This amount 

 of air is therefore rendered all but irrespirable by each animal in 

 the course of an hour. And this, be it noted, is by breathing 

 alone, and makes no account of the contamination by perspiration 

 in the overheated hold, and by the emanations from the accumu- 

 lating excrement." 



' ' On board the steamers we have found the space alloted to each 

 bullock to vary from 150 to 240 cubic feet. On the steamship 

 " Holland," loaded at New York, August 21, 1881, we found the 

 stalls amidships allowed the full space of 240 cubic feet per head. 

 In the bow where there was less height between the decks the 

 space was considerably less. On the lower deck, where 129 cat- 

 tle were accommodated, the space allowed each was 217.4 cubic 

 feet. The port- holes in the upper deck were nine inches in diam- 

 eter and there was one for each pair of stalls — central and lateral 

 or for eight oxen. These being well above the water line would 

 be available for ventilation in ordinary weather. The port-holes 

 in the lower deck, similarly arranged, were about two feet above 

 the water line, and consequently not available for ventilation, save 

 in exceptionally calm weather. The temperature on the main 

 deck of this ship (between the outer and main deck), when only 

 half the cattle had been loaded, was in the neighborhood of 90° 

 although she was lying in the center of the North River with 

 port- holes and hatches open, and a fresh breeze blowing from the 

 north." 



" On the ' Assyrian Monarch ' the space per head was only 192 

 cubic feet, but this ship was supplied with a ventilating fan or 

 blower capable of delivering over 50,000 cubic feet of fresh air 

 per hour, so that her ventilation was abundantly provided for. 

 In some smaller ships we found the space per head to exceed 

 little, if at all, 150 cubic feet. In these, accordingly, a single 

 hour without any change of air would threaten the life of every 

 animal on board, and two hours would endanger those for which 

 even the larger space is provided. It is true that such absolute 

 seclusion is rarely required, and that a certain amount of aerial 



