342 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



would be of great service to the agricultural commuaity ; 

 while the veteriuary officers of the Society might recommend 

 some prepared food iu which it might be administered. 



M. L)e La Trehonnais said that, as allusion had been 

 made to a recommendation coming from him to the Society, 

 he ought to be allowed to say a word upon the subject. In 

 one of his articles on English agriculture published abroad 

 he had stated that the last season was a very wet one, and 

 that many sheep had been affected with rot. He aftsrwarda 

 received a letter from a person not kuowa to him, stating 

 that a veterinary surgeon in his neighbourhood had discovered 

 an unfailing remedy for that awful disease. At first he paid 

 uo attention to the statement, but shortly afterwards he re- 

 ceived another letter, still more pressing, stating that the 

 veteriuary surgeon would come to England, bring his medi- 

 cine with him, go into the districts most affected, and under- 

 take, at his own risk, to cure the sheep, claiming no remune- 

 ration if he did not meet with success. Thinking that iu the 

 presence of such an evil no suggestion ought to be despised, 

 and knowing that the greatest discoveries of science had often 

 sprung from very humble sources, he wrote to Professor 

 Simonds, sending the whole correspondence, and under- 

 lakiug to furnish him with a certain quantity of the medicine 

 with which to make experiments, lie believed that the Pro- 

 fessor, under the authority of the Society, had purchased 

 Bome sheep, with a view of instiuttiug the experiments, which 

 he hoped would prove the value or the worthlessness of the 

 medicine. 



The Chairman said that at a recent meeting of the Veteri- 

 nary Committee of the Societ}', at which M. Trehonnais made 

 his communication, Prot'eaaor Simonds said he lived among 

 rotten sheep, and was quite ready to mstitute the experiments 

 forthwith. The Committee accordingly exceeded its powers 

 by voting a sum of money for the purchase of a dozen sheep 

 (hoping to have its decision confirmed by the Council), direct- 

 ing that half of them should be fed in the ordinary way, and 

 the other half treated with the medicine. Of course the re- 

 sults could not be ascertained at ouce, but they must wait 

 patiently in order to obtain them. With regard to the fashion- 

 able condiments going about, he might observe that a noble- 

 man of hia acquaintance, who was very well informed on agri- 

 cultural Bubiects, said he had purchased some of the cattle 

 food, whicji he had found very beneficial to his dairy cows and 

 sheep. 



Mr. Fisher Hobbs said he desired, as a practical farmer 

 «ud a Member of the Council, to move a vote of thanks to 

 Professor Simonds for the able lecture he had delivered. He 

 had heard him many times since he had been the Veterinary 

 Professor of the Society, but had never listened to a lecture of 

 such value as the one just delivered. He had no doubt it 

 would prove of the greato.t importance to the farmers of Eng- 

 land, and he hoped that means would be taken to have it pub- 

 lished at as early a period as praclicable. His advice with 

 reference to the use of salt and sulphate of iron would prove 

 very valuable, and he hoped that the results of the experiments 

 he was about to try would be satisfactory. Professor 

 Simonds was indefatigable iu his exertions, and he knew of no 

 man to whom the farmers of England were more indebted. 

 Mr. Arkell seconded the vote of thanks. 

 Mr. Holland, M.P., said it was of the greatest importance 

 that the lecture should go forth to the world as early as pos- 

 sible. The mischief was done in the summer, and it was 

 essential that timely warning should be given. 



Mr. J. S. Turner said that a neighbour of his in Sussex 

 had bought GOO ewes, all of which were affected with the rot, 

 and he believed that upwards of 500 were now dead. He 

 knew of many other cases of the same kind within a few miles 

 of the place in which he resided. He understood Professor 

 Simonds to say that land, if not subjected to flood, would not 

 rot sheep. 



Professor Simonds: I believe that all undrained land, 

 when you have an excess of moisture in the summer, is ren- 

 dered dangerous for sheep, and that it ia so because you then 

 have these creitures being developed in an active form. 



Mr. Turner said he was in the occupation of a farm in 

 1825; and in the month of October of that year there was a 

 severe gale, which caused the sea to overflow his banks and 

 flood his brooks. The consequence was, that he was obliged 

 to dig a fresh ditch. There was a nice spring in the brooks, 

 which he was obliged to stop and put back a certain distance [ 



to keep the water up, and it flowed over a portion of the land. 

 After the new ditch was made, he let the water off again ; 

 and the sheep went in where they had been before, and had 

 remained ever since. Bat at that particular time, the whole 

 of them were affected with rot. In 1816, he remembered a 

 case very similar to tbat referred to by Professor Simonds. 

 The late Mr. Rogers, of Kingston, near Lewes, sold 200 ewes, 

 which were driven through the pariah of Shorriugton, when a 

 dog ran at one of them, and broke its leg. The lame sheep 

 was then put into the churchyard, while the others went on 

 to Shorringtou Common. About three months afterwards, 

 the person to whom the sheep were sold wrote to Mr. Ro- 

 gers, saying that the sheep were all affected with the rot. They 

 went to law about the matter ; and before going into court, 

 the sheep left in the churchyard was killed, and was found to 

 be perfectly sound. 



The Chairman said he believed the year 1816 was the 

 worst year for farming in the present century ; but he re- 

 membered a worse year than that iu the last century. The 

 badness of the year 1816 did not begin till harvest time ; the 

 hay was very good, but the harvest was backward, and he dis- 

 tinctly remembered carrying half a field of oats on the 12th 

 or 14th of September,' and the other half was not carried 

 until November. 



Mr. Frere said. Professor Simonds had spoken of the 

 fluke in its penultimate state of transition being found on 

 flooded meadows, taken up into the sheep, and probably un- 

 dergoing its last transformation in the stomach of the animal. 

 He slioald like to ask v/hether the Professor thought that the 

 stomacli of the sheep was the only nidus in which that last 

 transformation took place. If there were no flukes in the 

 island, would the generation of them come to an end ? And 

 did the cycle of the different stages of these animals depend 

 upon the co-operation of the sheep ? He wished also to ask 

 whether the fluke found in the os wss the same animal as 

 found in the sheep ? He was under the impression that oxen 

 might be turned iiito the same meadows where the sheep were 

 so much affected, without such disastrous results. 



Professor Simonds : Wit'i reference to the first question 

 put by Mr. Frere, which ia a very important one, I may say 

 that it is absolutely necessary that the last stage should be 

 completed in the organism of the sheep or other mammalian 

 animal, otherwise there would ba no flukes in the country ; 

 because it ia only in the fluke form as existing in the biliary 

 ducts, that the developmeat of the generative system, and the 

 perfecting of the ova take place. If then you strike at the 

 root BO that there shall be no ova, there will never be any 

 flukes, which can only i^ach their high order of development 

 iu their proper nidus, the liver. Ttiey go there with the 

 germs of the sexual organs in them, and these become 

 completed by their development and growth. With 

 regard to the second question, whether the distoma met 

 with in oxen ia of the same character as that found in 

 sheep, we have uo reason to believe that there is any essential 

 difference between them, nor indeed that there is any difference 

 between these entozoa as found iu the goat, donkey, and other 

 animals. They are all closely allied, and probably nearly 

 identical. I think the reason why oxen do not suffer to the 

 same extent as sheep is that they do not bite so close ; that 

 they feed on taller grasses, and are therefore, not likely to 

 take in so many of the entozoa. Besides that, it is to be 

 remembered that they are animals of a stronger constitution. 

 Let me say by way of illustration, that suppose a hundred of 

 these flukes in the" biliary ducts of a sheep were sufficient 

 to produce a broken-up state of the constitution, the same 

 number in the system of an ox, though not positively without 

 injury, would not be sufficient to auoemiate an animal of so 

 strong a constitution. Then it is to be remembered, that if 

 oxen do fail, as they will in some few instances, or perhaps in 

 many, as in the western parts of England at the present 

 moment, they are generally young animals that are affected. 



The vote of thanks to Professor Simonds was unani- 

 mously adopted, together with a resolution that the Secretary 

 be requested to take such steps as should insure the immedi- 

 ate publication of the lecture. 



The lecture was illustrated by diagrams of the organism of 

 the ox and sheep, and the distoma hepaticum magnified, and 

 by specimens of the last-mentioned creature in various stages 

 of development, 

 The Council was then adjourned to the 24tb April. 



