354 ON GANGRENOUS PERIPNEUMONY IN CATTLE. 
simple air-holes, which, whether their elevation be four or five 
feet, are only level with the external soil. They have no litter, 
but they lie on an inclined plane, terminated by a reservoir, in 
which all their urine and dung are accumulated. This con¬ 
struction necessarily renders the air hot, oppressive, and mephitic 
—the cows are half-suffocated, and constantly covered with 
perspiration : therefore, how dreadful must be the determination 
of the perspirable fluid to the lungs when a cold wind corrugates 
the skin and closes all its pores; and especially when cold and 
clear water, drunk greedily, has chilled the interior of the body, 
long before the ardent thirst is assuaged ! 
On one hand there is a heavy, vitiated, hot air, preventing 
the action of the lungs, and permitting only an incomplete puri¬ 
fication of the blood; and on the other hand, a perspiration in¬ 
cessantly determined towards the skin, and thence driven back 
upon the lungs by the least application of cold. 
The circumstances which occasion an access of labour in the 
pulmonary organs, and a frequent arrest of the cutaneous per¬ 
spiration, are not less active during the fine season of the year. 
The lover of nature in her more majestic and imposing forms, 
who has travelled over our mountains, can tell how many different 
meteorological phenomena and sudden and strange changes of 
temperature he has witnessed in a single day. In the morning 
there are vapours dense and cold arising from the earth—at 
noon, a glowing sun and a serene sky—and at eve, a mist as 
thick and as cold as in the morning. Sometimes a black fog, or 
impenetrable clouds render the mountains quite invisible to the 
inhabitants of the valley, and, presently afterwards, every cloud 
will be dispersed, and the rays of the sun falling directly upon 
them, and reflected from every side, will be perfectly unbearable : 
this, again, is presently succeeded by an icy storm. The atmo¬ 
sphere is almost suffocating under the shelter of one of the hills— 
and unpleasantly sharp and rarefied a very little higher. Often, at 
the end of June, a long-continued snow follows a month of beautiful 
weather, or there is an almost continual snow storm on the sum¬ 
mits (chaumes), where a thick, short, and coarse grass, so grateful 
to cattle, is found. How many powerful causes of diseased affec¬ 
tions of the chest! for sometimes the vegetation of these plants is 
sufficiently developed to permit the peasants to leave their cattle 
on these elevations during the whole of the spring, returning to the 
dairy only at evening, and there not remaining during the night. 
In addition to this is the coldness of the water at these eleva¬ 
tions, and the power of drinking it at will. It is far more likely 
to chill the animal than that which is drunk at the stable door ; 
for in all the pasturages the fountain by which they are sup- 
