THE PARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



335 



his conditionr, of trial. It is ralhcr to be regretted 

 that they were not accepted. However, a packet of 

 his medicine has been handed over to Professor Si- 

 uionds, wiio we believe is now testing it. The tonic 

 hero agiiiu is said to bo the chief thing depended nnon, 

 but more than this is yet not kuown. The result of 

 the trial should come as a ptndent to the lecture now 

 published, ou some open \\'ednesday before Midsum- 

 mer. 



At a Weekly Council, on Wednesday, April 17th, 

 Sir John V. B. Johnstone, Bart., M.P., in the chair, 

 Professor Simonds delivered the following lecture on 

 the Nature and Causes of the Disease known as the Rot 

 in Sheep ; 



The subject to which I liave to direct the attention of the 

 meetiog this morning is one which possesses a considerable 

 amount of interest, in consequence of tlie great prevaleiice 

 of the affeclion st this particular time, and the ravages 

 wliich it is producing among sheep. I allude to the disease 

 whicii is commonly designated bv the terra rot, bo called pro- 

 bihly from the circumstance that we find iu the progress of 

 the alleCiion that the system of the animal arrives at a condi- 

 tion wliich is unfavourable to the continuance of the integrity 

 of its organs ; it brealis up, if I may so express it, into a de- 

 composed mass, and hence there can be no doubt that this 

 term lias been given to the aireciou, from tlie ultimate effects 

 which ate observed to attend its progress. The disease is 

 also known by other names in different parts of the country, 

 wliich more or less set forth its pathology. It is known, for 

 example, by the uarae of " bane" in the western parts of 

 England, probably from the baneful effects which attend the 

 malady. It is also occasionally called " coathe," a term which 

 seems iu part to describe, if not the nature of the affection, 

 certain symptoms which attend its progress. It is somewhat 

 difficult to trace out many of the local terras given to 

 diseases ; but I have been enabled, I think, satisfactorily 

 to trace the origin of this term "coathe." It appears to 

 come from the old Sixon word " cothe," which signifies to 

 swoon or faint; aud it is well known that auimals affected 

 with rot are exceedingly weak and debilitated, aud some- 

 times so exhausted as to b3 liable to faint or swoon. I shall 

 not intrude upon the meeting to any extent with regard to 

 these names, but it will be necessary for me to refer for a 

 moment to another term which is used not in Eughnd, but 

 on the continent, to express tiiis affection, namely, 

 " cachexia," or, as it is called in French, " cachexie aqueuse," 

 signifying a dropsical condition of the body. And this, again, 

 aets forth somewhat the pathology of the malady, for we find 

 that in its advanced stages there are dropsical or watery effusions 

 which take place in the different structures : hence, consequently, 

 the origin of the name. With regard to the term cachexia by 

 itself, it simply signifies, in medical language, a bad habit of 

 body; and it is not, therefore, by any means an appropriate 

 one to be used for this affectioi). None of the names I have 

 mentioned, in reality, at all show the nature of the disease ; 

 they simply describe certain conditional states of the body 

 and certain effects which follow upon these conditional states, 

 and it would be very desirable, if we possibly could, to em- 

 ploy such a term as should express the true pathology of the 

 malady. I may observe at once that there are a great num- 

 ber of different diseases affecting sheep which pass by the 

 common term '-rot;" and this of course will explain why 

 many different opinion) are entertaioed with regard to the 

 discaie by different persons. These persons, in reality, de- 

 scribe two or more distinct affections, and hence they are not 

 bke'.y to agree as to their nature and symptoms. You occa- 

 sionally hear such terms as "water-rot" and "fluke-rot," 

 leading one to suppose that with one variety of rot you have a 

 dropsical condition of the body, and that with another you 

 have certain entozoa located in a part of the organism, and 

 commonly designated flukes. I would rather, however, con- 

 fine the term rot, if we are still to use it, to that affection iu 

 whi.^h we have flukes, as they are called, in the biliary ducts 

 of the liver, setting aside entirely every other disease that has 

 been clashed under that name. I sha'l hjve to show you per- 



haps iu the course of my remarks that dropsical atfectioua, 

 although agreeing in their latter stages with some of the symp- 

 toms of rot, arc essentially and totally different. The next re- 

 mark that I would make with regard to this affection is that it is 

 by no means new. it is uot new to us at all ; nor, in fact, can it 

 be said to be so to more early investigators. We find the earliest 

 writerj upon the diseases ol cattle and sbeep making mention of 

 the destruction which arises from time to time from rot, aud they 

 speak of a variety of causes iu operation to produce this state 

 of the animal organism. Aud not only is it irot new in this 

 country, but the same remark will apply to foreign countries, 

 and I think it would not be going too far to say that there is 

 no part of the globe where sheep have been domesticated in 

 which we do uot find this disease more or less ptevaiiiug. It 

 belongs to no clirae and to no country. This is a matter cf 

 some importance, because if the assertion be true, we shall ses 

 that all the supposed local causes in this couiitry to which 

 the malady is by many persona attributed, cannot possibly 

 have reference to other countries. For example, some persons 

 speak of the deleterious cfKcts of certain grasses, such as the 

 carnation grass. Now the carnation grass does uot, so far as 

 I know, belong to Egypt or to Australia, or to other 

 parts of the world where this disease is met with ; and this 

 bhows us, were there no other proofs, that we are not right in 

 lookii'g for any one special cause of this affection, in regard, 

 at any rate, to the kind of provender upon which the animals 

 raay be feeding. It will perhaps be unnecessary foi- me to 

 allude to the great losses which in all countries i'rom time to 

 time have resulted from outbreaks of this affection. In Egypt 

 the losses are very considerable, and they are always found to 

 attend upon the too early passing of sheep upon those districts 

 that are oveiflowed by the Nile : hence some individuals have 

 supposed that there sprang up upon soils of that kind plants 

 which arc injurious to sheep and produce this affection. But 

 in this country also we have had serious outbreaks cf the 

 malady. Perhaps the greatest oubreak that ever occurred in 

 England, or at any rate the one respecting which we have the 

 most authentic information, is that which took place in 1830, 

 in which it was supposed that we lost not fewer than two 

 millions of sheep ; and the result was that an inquiry, then 

 going on in the House of Commons with regard to the de- 

 pressing caueej of agriculture, branched out into an investiga- 

 tion of those losses. 1 believe the Governmeut fully ascer- 

 tained that in the following year the supply of sheep to our 

 metropolitan markets was diminished by 5,000 — a cir- 

 cumstance that will help to show us to what an 

 extent we have suffered in this country when these 

 great outbreaks have taken place. From 1830 to the present 

 time we have also had periodical outbreaks which have been 

 more or less destructive, but none of them perhaps since that 

 period have been so destructive as the present one. Speaking 

 generally, I think I am right in saying that nearly ail the 

 southern parts of England, together witn some of the eastern, 

 and particularly the western parts, are at this time affected 

 with this disease, aud there have been some thousands of ani- 

 mals that have had to be disposed of at a very small cost, 

 while others that have not been sold in the early stages of the 

 affection have died by hundreds. I am acquainted with in- 

 stances iu my own neighbourhood, on the verge of London, 

 where the losses have amounted from GOO to 700 sheep in a flock. 

 I am now speaking more particularly of Welsh sheep, the ewes 

 having been purchased and brought into the district for breed- 

 ing purposes. Some persons indeed have scarcely a sheep left. 

 One person in particular who buys 800 or 900 of these sheep 

 has, I believe, not more than 40 or 50 now alive. In Sussex 

 and in many parts of Surrey similar losses of sheep of far 

 greater value have taken place. In the neighbourhood of 

 Eastbourne some persons have lost as many as 500 and 600 

 breeding ewes of considerable value as Southdown sheep. 

 These facts will show that the disease is not only very exten- 

 sive, but that all kinds of sheep, from the most inferior to the 

 superior, are equally affected with the malady. Having made these 

 preliminary observatiouf , I must pass on to speak of the nature 

 of the disease, aud to show what have been supposed to be 

 the causes in operation to produce it. We have had a great 

 number of theories as to the cause of the affection, but they 

 have been more or less wide of the true cause, some, however, 

 having approximated to it. For example, in Mr. Youatt's very 

 excellent work — a work which I may say ought to be in the 

 hands of every farmer — there is a very leugtbeued article upon 



