316 FEVER INFLAMMATORY FEVER. 



amount taken. This is especially true in acute disorders. 

 Blacklock tersely remarks : "Either bleed rapidly or bleed 

 not at all." The orifice in the vein, therefore, should be of 

 some length, and I need not inform the least experienced 

 practitioner that it should be made lengthwise with the vein. 

 A lancet is by far the best implement, and even a sharp- 

 pointed pen -knife is preferable to the bungling fleam. 

 Another important rule in bleeding is that, when indicated 

 at all, it should always be resorted to as riearly as possible to 

 the commencement of the malady. 



The amount of blood drawn should never be determined 

 by admeasurement, but by constitutional effect the lowering 

 of the pulse, and indications of weakness. In urgent cases, as, 

 for example, apoplexy or cerebral inflammation, it would be 

 proper to bleed until the sheep staggers or falls. The amount 

 of blood in the sheep is less, in comparison, than that in the 

 horse or ox. The blood of the horse constitutes about 

 one-eighteenth part of his weight, that of the ox at least 

 one-twentieth, while the sheep, in ordinary condition, is one- 

 twenty-second. For this reason, we should be more cautious 

 in bleeding the latter, especially in frequently resorting to it. 

 Otherwise the vital powers will be rapidly and fatally 

 prostrated. Many a sheep is destroyed by bleeding freely in 

 disorders not requiring it, and in disorders which did require 

 it at the commencement, but of which the inflammatory stage 



FEVER. Fever, without any particular local disease, is 

 very rare in the United States. I never saw a case which I 

 believed came strictly within this class. The sheep suffering 

 from it is without appetite, retreats to a shady place and lies 

 on the ground, pants if it is driven, has a high pulse, a clammy 

 mouth, a dry, hot nose, hot feet, red eyes, and a dull, anxious 

 countenance. On examination, the disease has not yet 

 fastened upon any organ ; it is simple fever. At this stage it 

 yields readily to moderate depletion the abstraction of a 

 small amount of blood and a dose of cathartic medicine. 



LVFLAMMATORY FEVER. Mr. Price, an English writer on 

 Sheep Grazing and Management, gives the following account 

 of this disease : " The number of animals that die of this 



disorder in Romney Marsh is truly astonishing: I should 

 suppose nearly four in a hundred yearly in some soils and 

 situations, and at peculiar seasons, although every precaution 



