358 
ON PHTHISIS IN COWS. 
cattle merchants who supply the Paris markets ; and this city and 
its environs are, in general, the destination of all the bad cows of 
a great many cantons ; consequently, a considerable number of 
those that are brought here have in them the germ of con¬ 
sumption. 
If we examine the management of these animals by the cow- 
keepers, we shall find plenty of causes for the rapidly increasing 
intensity of the disease, and which will well explain the mor¬ 
tality so frequent in their establishments, or, at least, the neces¬ 
sity of so often replacing their cows. 
The dairymen buy their cows, either when they have newdy 
calved, or are about to calve. If the purchase is made in sum¬ 
mer, the animals are immediately placed in open sheds or houses, 
and supplied with food abounding with nourishment; they are 
consigned to idleness, and repose almost continual. They 
quickly recover from the fatigue of their journey, or of parturi¬ 
tion, and, for a while, every thing seems to be going on well. 
Presently autumn arrives, and the temperature of the air be¬ 
comes too cold for the secretion of milk to continue so abundant, 
and the dairymen close their cow-houses. Then the principal 
causes of affections of the chest begin to act cruelly on those, 
the greater number of whom have already pulmonary diseases, 
or, at all events, are powerfully disposed to have them. 
The stables are shamefully small, compared with the number of 
the cows. They are narrow, low,and, when we calculate the quan¬ 
tity of air which a cow will usually respire in the course of a night, 
we find that they have not one-fourth part of that which the pur¬ 
poses of health require. The air is also charged with aqueous fluid 
exhaled from the lungs and the skin. This water continually 
runs down the walls of the stables, the beams, and the racks : 
the cows are covered with perspiration, by means of the heat 
in which they are so long plunged, and the air charged with 
water which they expire ; and in the morning, when the door is 
opened, a thick cloud rushes out of the stable, and the air some¬ 
times fairly drives back, by its almost irrespirable nature, the 
person who is about to enter. 
Is it possible that these animals, already predisposed to dis¬ 
eases of the chest, can long resist these determining causes ? it 
is rather to be wondered at, that some of the inmates of such a 
pest-house resist the deleterious influence so long. 
This, however, is not all: there are two other causes of disease 
as powerful as those that have been already described. 
In the first place, the nutriment of these cows is always abun¬ 
dant, because they give milk in proportion as the quantity of 
food exceeds that which is necessary for the purposes of life; 
