650 
LECTURE ON THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 
have mentioned. The only person who has treated this matter 
scientifically is Mr. Wm. Percivall, veterinary surgeon of the 
First Life Guards ; and I shall, without further comment, read an 
extract from some statements which that gentleman has made. 
After speaking of defective ventilation and its results, he proceeds 
to say : — 
“ But there is another source of impurity — if not a greater or 
more harmful one, still one of acknowledged evil, and one against 
which, so far as we know concerning it, there is every reason that 
we should endeavour to efficiently protect the animal — and that is, 
the effluvium from the urine and dung of the animal, and in parti- 
cular the former. It will be said, perhaps, that drains carry away 
the urine, and that the dung is no sooner dropped than it is removed 
out of the stable. We would remind those persons, however, who 
may sit down satisfied that no harm can arise from such sources in 
stables which are drained and kept clean, that in these stables 
stench, even to a greater degree, is likely to be generated from 
the dispersion of the urine upon the floor ; seeing that males and 
females cannot both stale through the same barred receptacle in 
the stall. And, even supposing such was the case, the cesspool 
underneath the barred grating never ceases to emit urinous effluvia, 
though such may be more evident immediately after staling, or any 
agitation of the contents of the cesspool, than at other times. In 
a stable where the drain and receptacle for the urine are behind 
the horse, there must be necessarily a greater dispersion of fluid 
upon the floor, and a corresponding amplitude of surface for un- 
wholesome evaporation. The stable, however, which of all others 
appears to generate this urinous atmosphere is the one unfurnished 
with any drain or receptacle for the urine ; wherein it is suffered 
either to diffuse itself over the flooring and disappear through being 
absorbed by the soil in the interstices of the pavement, or by the 
pores of the pavement itself (such as wood), or else through 
evaporation from the wetted unabsorbent surface. In either case 
urinous vapours will arise in abundance. 
“ That the ammoniacal gas furnished by the urine of horses — 
to say nothing about any noxious effluvia their dung may emit — is 
of an injurious, if not a poisonous nature, no man will doubt who 
has ever in his life entered, the first in the morning, a 'stable con- 
taining several horses, the doors and windows of which have been 
kept all night close shut up ; his eyes will not fail to convince 
him, should his breath and smell not inform * him, of the ammo- 
niacal noxiousness of the confined atmosphere. Supposing the 
windows of the stable had been opened, or that due ventilation had 
been afforded, undoubtedly the atmosphere would not have been 
of the same offensive description. Still, however, would the 
