DOUBLE-SCOPE AND BLINDNESS 677 



phosphates. ... If changed on to freestone land, they will 

 generally improve and do well." As a preventive, farmers 

 usually move their sheep every week or two. Preliminary 

 inquiries made by the Veterinary Department of the Board of 

 Agriculture in the end of 1906, failed to find any scientific or 

 other reason for cracking the frontal bones of affected sheep. 

 If the operation be only a preliminary to a change to better 

 pasture for thin sheep usually brought in from the moors, 

 the credit is more probably wrongly allocated to a mistaken 

 practice in place of to the change of food. The disease seems 

 to be similar to Vanquish, which occurs on poor soils 

 resting on granite, and which is checked by good shepherding 

 and cured by a change to better pasture on another geological 

 formation. Both diseases require to be fully investigated. 



Temporary Blindness is most frequently met with after 

 a long spell of cold wet weather. A dim, opaque scum forms 

 over the pupil of the eye. This would disappear naturally 

 in time, but, as the animal cannot see to feed, it falls off in 

 condition, and may tumble into a hole. Bleeding at the eyes 

 is the shepherds' remedy. A penknife is inserted between 

 the frontal bone and the skin immediately above the inner 

 corner of the eye, and a large vein, which bleeds profusely, 

 is severed. The contagious form, Epizootic conjunctivitis , 

 spreads rapidly through a flock in close contact, and the 

 animals fall off in condition. The treatment is to keep the 

 sheep as quiet as possible for the ten days in which the 

 ailment runs its course, and bathe the eyes with a solution 

 of boracic acid (2 drams to a pint of tepid water). 



Foot-rot. It was noticed that dipping with arsenic 

 reduced the lameness of sheep suffering from foot-rot, and 

 from this sprang the custom, for prevention as well as for 

 cure in mild cases, of driving sheep once a fortnight through 

 a trough containing a solution of arsenic. The drying and 

 hardening action on the horn is injurious if repeated oftener. 

 In very bad cases, all horn that has separated from the inner 

 structure of the foot by inflammation followed by suppuration 

 must be removed with a sharp knife, and the raw exposed 

 surfaces, which would grow proud-flesh if not attended to, 

 dressed with a caustic or acid mixture, as arsenic is hurtful to 

 a large open sore. A flock of sheep may be badly injured 

 in condition, and made to appear as if they were foundered, 



