330 VETEEINAKY HYGIENE 



Consideration of Existing Cotv-honscs. 



We must now pass from the ideal sanitary cow-shed, 

 with its iron fittings, concrete floor, well lighted and venti- 

 lated, and deal with some of the actual buildings which 

 exist. This was not considered a profitable study in the 

 case of existing stables of the poor industrial type, but in 

 the matter of cow-sheds the question is difi'erent, owing to 

 their intimate association with the public health, and to 

 the fact that legislative measures are possible in regard to 

 some of them. 



The poorest type of cow-shed will not detain us long. 

 It is small, confined, closed up, unventilated ; its floor is 

 frequently pervious, or absorbent and out of repair ; the 

 fittings rough and insanitary. The walls fly-laden and 

 filthy, and the place generally broken, patched or repaired 

 with whatever is available ; its situation is often undesir- 

 able, frequently in contact with human habitation, stables, 

 or piggeries, and its dung-pit either under the same roof or 

 just outside. 



It is quite possible, even with a poor class of rural 

 cow-house, to keep it clean, but such is the exception 

 rather than the rule, while the poorer cow-houses in cities 

 are often so situated, that cleanliness within and without is 

 a physical impossibility. 



For this reason it is recommended that no cow-sheds be 

 permitted in crowded streets, while the compulsory closing 

 of those where sanitary requirements are such as to be 

 outside the range of possibility, was rightly urged by the 

 Eoyal Commission appointed to inquire into the danger 

 arising from the milk and meat of tuberculous animals. 



The above Commission was greatly impressed by a visit 

 paid to a cow-shed in a densely populated part of Edin- 

 burgh, where they found the washhouse, scullery, and 

 stable of an ordinary dwelling house converted into a cow- 

 shed, while the narrow court through which the air supply 

 came was reeking with the odour of manure and decom- 

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