132 



Fulton County, Ohio. — A disease is reported in Fulton Couuty -wliicli attacks many 

 while in good condition. Tliey eat sparingly, get weak, and after a week or two die. 

 No remedy has been found. There is no running at the nose, or eyes, or other indica- 

 tions of a disease of the head. 



Winnebago County, III. — Last year I made a statement of an unusual disease appear- 

 ing among my lambs. A similar trouble appeared again this last fall, commencing 

 later in the season and running nearly through the winter, not so fatal as in the fall of 

 1^6":^ ; then I lost about one-half of my lambs ; during last fall and winter, about one- 

 fifth have died, and, with one exception, of the same cause, dysentery. I liaA'e exam- 

 ined quite a number of those that died, and have come to the conclusion that the 

 worms are the primary cause of the disease. I find the small white worms by millions 

 all through the intestines, the latter being completely full of knobs, which, if I mis- 

 take not, contain the eggs of the parasites. I would like to have the opinion of a good 

 veterinarian upon the subject. Some of mj sheep died early in the winter of the same 

 cause. Several iiocks of lambs were decimated by dysentery last fall in this county. 



De JVitt County, III. — Our sheep have been subject to most all diseases to which they 

 are liable, the scab and foot-rot being the most prominent and fatal. I think that fully 

 three-fourths of our entire sheep have been carried off by these diseases, or affected to 

 such an extent as to cause the owner to kill them for the i)elt, the carcass being fed to 

 hogs. 



Laurel County, Ky. — There has been a disease rather unusual among sheep. I don't 

 know what name to give it. The animal stands in a very stupid manner, will not eat 

 anything; if driven, will move forward without turning for any obstacle until he runs 

 against it as if he was blind. The eyes are wide open. In this condition he will live 

 eight or ten days, and dies. 



Xehraska. — Great mortality from scab is reported from Merrick County. Seventy- 

 five per centum of the sheep have died from scab. One man had three thou- 

 sand head in the fall ; to-day he has about three hundred. I am satisfied his sheep did 

 not get the care they were entitled to — a course of practice, I am sorry to say, too com- 

 mon in this county. 



Worth County, Mo. — One flock of about twenty-five, a year ago, had a disease new to 

 me and to others in this vicinity. They would commence stepping forward with their 

 fore feet until their bellies would almost touch the ground, and would stand in that po- 

 sition till they would fall over. These are the symptoms so far as I recollect. The 

 remedy used was a piece of assafetida about as large as a small hickory-nut, boiled in 

 sweet milk, which proved efl:ectual in most cases, but in case of a second attack they 

 were incurable ; at least, all attacked the second time died. 



Lewis County, Mo. — There is little disease among the native sheep, but of one flock of 

 eight hundred and fifty, imported from Illinois, all died except about sixty. 



Bexar County, Texas. — The scab was unknown until of late years, when it was intro- 

 duced by sheep brought from other States. The original sheep of the county, the 

 Mexican, were never aftected by the scab. It has been found to yield readily to treat- 

 ment with tobacco juice, with which the scab has to be washed after the wool has been 

 taken off. One flock numbering eight thousand head in 1861 was reduced to one thou- 

 sand four hundred by 1868, when they were moved to a fresh range two hundred miles 

 oft'. They are now recovering. 



Williamson County, Texas. — We have no diseases among sheep excepting scab, and 

 that prevails to a greater or less extent in all considerable flocks, the loss ranging from 

 a small per centum to one more than equal to the increase. 



DISEASES OF SWINE. 



There is something- radically -^roug in the management of swine, re- 

 sulting yearly in the loss of millions of young pigs and hogs, or else the 

 genus Sus is an unhealthy and unwholesome animal, and therefore unfit 

 for human food. One or the other of these conclusions seems to be 

 forced upon the common sense and sound judgment of the observer. 

 The mortality among young pigs, for which the butcher has no respon- 

 sibility, is nearly if not quite proportionate to that of infants of the 

 human species, and aggregates millions of individuals yearly. What is 

 the cause ? It is greatest in the West, notwithstanding the healthful- 

 ness of a free range, while ea.stern pigs are generally shut up in close 

 pens. In all accounts of " hog cholera," which popularly means any 

 disea.se which sweeps oif the species as an epizootic, while remedies are 

 unavailing, prevention is found to be practicable, at least in a partial 

 degree, and coal ashes, salt, sulphur, soap, saltpeter, gas-lime, coal-oil, 



