TREATMENT OF SHEEP-POX. 33 



having been smallpox, although it is described as " a new kind 

 of disorder associated with white pustules filled with matter in- 

 sufferably stinking." In France about the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century, it had become so established as to be con- 

 sidered that every sheep must suffer and have an attack of the 

 malady at some period of its life, if it reached an average 

 maximum of existence. 



England has been visited at various periods by this affection, 

 but on each occasion it has been clearly traced to importation. 

 In Animal Plagues, by Fleming, it is stated that it has been 

 known in England from a very early time. We have also 

 records of a dreadful outbreak in the thirteenth century, which 

 lasted for thirty years, from which large numbers succumbed. 

 Another outbreak is said to have occurred during the sixteenth 

 century scarcely less severe. The first authentic recorded out- 

 break of Variola Ovina is stated to have been seen about the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century. " The distemper spread 

 indiscriminately amongst all kinds of animals, killing great 

 numbers after a few days' illness. A critical discharge mani- 

 fested itself on the thighs, neck, and head, resembling smallpox." 

 Rammazini did not scruple to declare these pustules to be small- 

 pox, for they differed not from it in form or colour, or in the 

 manner in which they went off; when they had dried off after 

 the suppuration they left a black scar like that which remains 

 after the smallpox. This epidemic contagion continued attack- 

 ing the sheep chiefly and so violently that the breed was almost 

 destroyed. It has been constantly observed that of all animals 

 sheep are the most subject to smallpox." — Mills on Cattle. 



A most decided outbreak of smallpox in sheep occurred in 

 England in 1847. Professor Williams, in his Veterinary 

 Medicine, says: — "Sheep-pox was unknown in this country until 

 1847, wlien it broke out on a farm at iJatchett, near Windsor, 

 where it was introduced by fifty-six merino sheep, brought to 

 tliis country in the ship " Trident," from Tonning, in Denmark. 



Professor Simonds in his treatise on Variola Ocina, says: — ''We 

 liave not succeeded in tracing the subsequent distribution of each 

 separate lot of this cargo. . . . Within a day or two of the arrival 

 of the ' Trident,' two vessels, the ' jMountaineer ' and 'Princess 

 lloyal,' each having on board a number of merino sheep brought 

 from Hamburg, in some of which the disease has shown itself." 

 . . . Professor CJamgee, in his 7A)??ifs/ic^?i2;?jr(/s, says: — '"Avery 

 s itisfactory explanation of the alarming introduction of smallpox 

 in 1847 is to Ije found in the extraordinary sudden increase in 

 the importation of sheep. In that year no fewer than 139,^571 

 sheep were imported, whereas the total number for the rive 

 years previously was 111,222. . . . The foreign dealers were 

 exerting themselves to increase the supply of sheep, and it is 



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