41;^ MODER?^ FARRl'Eit. 



itself, that ought to be looked to. If that cause be 

 hunger, rot will not be the consequence, but the 

 usual effects of starvation will follow. It is weU 

 known that on healthy pastures, whether so rich as 

 to keep sheep fat, or so poor as only to bring them 

 into ordinary condition, the rot is not known. Soft 

 rank grasses, whether abundant or scarce, invariably 

 occasion the disease. Indeed, it is now so well un- 

 derstood that rank grasses act as a sort of poison 

 on the stomach of sheep, that the rot is very easily 

 avoided. 



Cure. — The cure, in the first stages of the disease, 

 does not present many difficulties. The first object 

 is to free the stomach and intestines from their per- 

 nicious contents by means of a purgative, such as 

 common or Glauber salts, and when that is accom- 

 plished, wholesome food will most probably com- 

 plete the cure. 



The medicine to which we may look with greatest 

 confidence in the advanced stages of rot, appears to 

 be mercury. It woidd perhaps be improper to ad- 

 minister this internally. The safest and most effec- 

 tual method of applying it, is in tlie form of the 

 common blue ointment, and a trial of this is strongly 

 recommended to those whose flocks are liable to rot. 

 It should be applied to the bare skin on the region 

 of the liver, and the size of a nut rubbed on it till it 

 is all dried up, twice a day, for a week or ten days. 

 This, in conjunction with wholesome food, will, in 

 all probability, prove to be the most effectual treat- 

 ment. Mercury is well known to be a specific for 

 the diseased liver of the human body, and on that 

 account, we may presume that it will be efficacious 

 in the cure of the same organ in sheep, and it is also 

 recommended as the most effectual means of de- 

 stroying the fluke-worm. 



An able writer on this subject justly observes, 

 that the poke, or swelling under the jaws, does not 

 appear to be a symptom peculiar to the rot. Cattle 



