BRAXY IN SHEEP. 293 



prepared to accept the views of Sir George Stewart Mac- 

 kenzie, who says : " The disease in all its varieties is in- 

 flammatory, and from the great tendency of the inflammation 

 to run into mortification, it may be termed a putrid dis- 

 order." Braxy is not an inflammatory disease, and it is not 

 a putrid fever. James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, whose 

 work indicates the most acute powers of observation, and is 

 singularly suggestive, though speaking of four different kinds 

 of braxy, refers to the similarity between them; and his 

 bowel sickness, sickness in the flesh and blood, or black 

 spauld, and dry braxy, are varieties of one and the same 

 disease. Under the head ' dry braxy,' he has included colic 

 and its consequences, which cannot be regarded as a form of 

 the very general disease under consideration. Hogg alludes 

 too much to inflammation, but far more truth than has 

 usually been believed to exist in his writings may be found 

 under the head of causes, and of the different forms of the 

 disease ; he says, " It is probable that the one originates in 

 a stoppage of the blood-vessels, and the other in a stoppage 

 of some parts of the bowels." 



Gasparin refers to the malady as a " gastro-enteritis sans 

 eruption/' and throughout the whole chapter in his book on 

 this subject he indicates that the prevalent opinion in France 

 is to the effect that the disease, as the Scotch shepherds 

 describe it, is ' bowel sickness,' or inflammation of the intes- 

 tine. This depends on the confusion created by the presence 

 of extensive ecchymoses, which are regarded as inflammatory 

 lesions, and we often find reference made to the inflamed 

 condition of the heart, whereas this organ is simply studded 

 inside and out with subserous extravasations of blood. 



It is undoubtedly a fact that braxy in the Scotch Highlands 

 is not a contagious disease, and for ages have the sheep dying 

 from this disease been dressed as braxy mutton. I am not 



