ON VETERINARY HYGIENE. 
593 
which ventilation only from time to time gives exit to along with 
the respired and heated air, without to any great or sufficient de- 
gree abating the disagreeable and harmful influence thereof. It is 
evident, that so long as the horses’ excretions remain in the stable, 
they will continue to exhale noxious effluvia; the exhalation being 
great in proportion as the surface for it be extended, and the stable 
be heated. Drainage, however complete, can but abate the nui- 
sance, not remove it ; and when all things come to be considered, 
the question may be fairly entertained, whether drainage or a, bi- 
bulous soil for the flooring of the stable the most palliate the evil. 
Drainage can prove effective only in situations where, through 
irrigation or the turning of a current of water on through the 
drains, they can be thoroughly washed out ; and even here it is 
doubtful whether or not the urinous stench be completely destroyed. 
For our own part, we should say it was not, owing to the very 
bricks themselves composing the drains or flooring of the stable 
having become saturated with the urine constantly stagnant upon 
them for several hours together. The least bibulous material with 
which we have seen stables paved is asphalte, and, next to that, 
probably, the Dutch clinker : for this very reason, however, do 
surfaces so composed require still more frequent and thorough ab- 
lution ; inasmuch as in the absence of this speedy and repeated 
washing, offensive exhalation is going on all day long from these 
unabsorbent, undrying surfaces. 
Seeing, then, that we are hardly able in any way to accomplish 
the entire removal of the urinous exhalation — one great source of 
the impurity of the stable atmosphere, and yet, that such removal, 
or something tantamount thereto, is most desirable, what has been 
suggested is, that means be adopted to neutralize or to suppress 
such infecting vapours, and thereby, either to prevent the forma- 
tion of or render harmless that which, when once formed, we have 
no completely effective means of getting rid of. In these days of 
invention of disinfectants there will be — there has, indeed, been — • 
no lack of chemical offerings for the purpose of neutralizing or de- 
stroying the stable poison so soon as its nature or composition be 
made known. Mr. Ellerman, late Hanoverian Consul at Ant- 
werp, has published a pamphlet, entitled “ Disinfection.” Sir H. 
Burnett, also, has taken out a patent for chloride of zinc to be used 
