NEGLECTED COMFORT, &C., OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 395 
mere substitutions of unmeaning words for unknown phenomena. 
That great good, however, may be effected in the prevention of 
disease by the more careful and the more watchful treatment of 
live stock, is tolerably certain ; for instance, the ill effect of rapid 
transitions in the temperature of the air in which domestic animals 
are placed, and likewise of ill treatment, is much more consider- 
able than some persons are willing to believe. The natural habits, 
too, of different varieties of the same class of animals differ very 
materially. In small and in thorough-bred horses the pulsations 
of the heart are about 40 to 42 in a minute. In the cart horses of 
the farm they do not amount to more than 36. When they are 
treated ill, or even when spoken roughly to, their circulation is in- 
creased 10 pulsations per minute. The natural circulation of the 
sheep is about 70 per minute. The average pulse of a full grown 
ox, in a state of health in England, is about 40; this would seem to 
increase, however, with the temperature of the country in which we 
are placed. Dr. James Smith (. Journal Agriculture, vol. xi, p. 92) 
finds that, in the climate of Louisiana, the pulse of the ox, when in 
its natural state, is from 68 to 75, rising on the slightest excitement 
to 80. This may explain the difficulty they find in that country 
of acclimating the ox, an obstacle not found in the case of the 
horse, which, in the warm climate of Louisiana, is managed with 
considerable facility. 
That the effect of cold is exceedingly prejudicial to the fattening 
of animals, every farmer is aware. Warmth, cleanliness, and 
quietude, every owner of live stock, who has paid the slightest 
attention to the subject, readily allows to be highly conducive to 
the health of the horse and the ox. To the pig the same remark 
applies. It is found that the pigs whose styes have a southern 
declination thrive much better than those placed in a colder as- 
pect. They can hardly, perhaps, be kept too warm and too clean. 
The more recent experiments of Mr. Childers and others have 
proved that the domestic sheep is not an exception to the rule. 
And this sheltering of sheep, on an extensive scale, may, it seems, 
be profitably accomplished. 
If the advantages are considerable which are derivable from a 
close and unremitting attention to the temperature of the situation 
in which the animal is placed when in the field, to a still greater 
extent is the same result obtained when it is placed in confined si- 
tuations ; yet it is seldom, indeed, that the keeper of live stock 
avails himself of the facts which, in this respect, the long-continued 
and laborious efforts of men of science have demonstrated, although 
these great benefactors of the cultivator have shewn very clearly 
that the most profitable management of all animals cannot be at- 
tained without a due regard to the medium in which they are 
