306 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



who haye the care of sheep, would not know how to use, but by the help of 

 soap an emulsion of carbolic and cresylic acids .is made. After having shorn 

 the sheep it is dipped in this mixture ; a single inunersion in a bath containing 

 one-sixtieth of it is sufficient to effect a cure. After scab, the foot-rot is one of 

 the worst and most frequent complaints. Carbolic acid is also for that an 

 efficacious remedy. For this a mixture is made of the acid and an adherent 

 and greasy substance capable of forming a plaster, which is made to adliere to 

 the animal's foot, for two or three days preventing the contact of the air, allow- 

 ing thereby time for the application to have its effect. But if the flock be 

 numerous it would take a long time to dress the four feet of each animal, one 

 after another ; so to make it more easy a shallow tray is made of stone ; a sort 

 of trough ; this is filled with the medicated mixture and the sheep made to pass 

 through it, their feet being thus impregnated with the requked substance. 

 Permit me also to state that cattle cease to be annoyed with flies, &c., if washed 

 with this solution or a weak solution of carbolic acid; and a first-rate salve can 

 be prepared by adding 10 per cent, of carbolic acid to lard or any other fatty 

 matters used for such purposes." 



It was chiefly because of the uses of carbolic acid to the farmer 

 that attention is here called to it. How extensive these may become 

 it i& at present impossible to say ; but it is safe to assert that for 

 lice, ticks, and other vermin infesting his domestic animals, and for 

 their cutaneous diseases, sores, ulcers and the like, its equal for 

 safety and efficiency has not before been found. Its use in medi- 

 cine is rapidly extending, being used with great success in burns 

 and scalds, in erysipelas, for preventing and arresting ulceration, 

 and for many other diseases ; as well as for the jDrevention and 

 arrest of epidemics and all diseases of zymotic origin. With the 

 single drawback of its disagreeable odor, its applications and uses 

 in a sanitary point of view are more important and numerous than 

 those of any other known substance whatever — and tlie odor 

 rapidly becomes less unjileasant to most people who. use it, until 

 it ceases to be so at all, and especially as the better qualities are 

 employed. 



The best clue to be offered regarding its applications and uses, 

 as well as the best safeguard against its misuse, may be had by 

 remembering a few plain facts. First, that according to the best 

 authorities, all contagious, infectious or epidemic diseases (as well 

 as some others neither infectious nor contagious) are zymotic — that 

 is to say, tliey are of the character of fermentations ; and that these 

 fermentations depend on the presence of various low forms of vege- 

 table and animal life ; next, that Phenol and Cresol, or so called 

 Carbolic Acid is anti-zymotic ; that is, it is opposed to, and even 

 in very minute quantities fatal to these low forms of life ; thus, if 



