LAMB DISEASE IN AMERICA. 333 



masters have remarked to me that they never before saw their 

 sheep so quiet, so disposed to remain constantly in their 

 stables, and so fleshy towards spring. Having eaten, they 

 lay most of the time in their bedding until they again rose 

 to eat. Flocks accustomed to run in pastures in the winter, 

 and to dig down to the grass, were of course entirely cut off 

 from their usual supply of succulent food." 



At the conclusion of his paper Mr Randall refers to the 

 same points I have so often insisted on as to the overfeeding 

 of ewes, and keeping them in an inactive state. He says : 

 " I believe that I have seen the fact repeatedly established, 

 that it will not do to let pregnant ewes obtain green food by 

 roving about the fields and turnip patches, for the first two 

 or three months of pregnancy, and then confine them rigor- 

 ously to a small yard and dry food. Some farmers habitually 

 do this, but I never saw it done with impunity in a large 

 flock. In winters unfavourable to sheep, it often leads to 

 a wholesale destruction of even the grown animals. 



PARASITIC DISEASES. 



The subject of parasitism has within the last twenty years 

 afforded scope for the most interesting researches. 



In former times there was a tendency amongst medical 

 observers to attribute many of the most fatal and most com- 

 mon diseases of man to the influence of animal or vegetable 

 parasites, which were often supposed to generate spontan- 

 eously under stated circumstances. As Leuckart says, "There 

 was no severe or dangerous disease which parasites, and 

 especially intestinal worms, were not supposed to induce."* 



* Die Menschlichen Parasiten und die von ihnen Herriihrenden 

 Krankheiten von Dr Rudolf Leuckart, Leipzig, 1862. 



