MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC CATARRH. 319 



In this form it is usually termed snuffles, and high-bred 

 English mutton sheep, in this country, are apt to manifest 

 more or less of it, after every sudden change of weather. 

 When the inflammation extends to the mucous lining of the 

 larynx and pharynx, some degree of fever usually super- 

 venes, accompanied by cough, and some loss of appetite. At 

 this point the English veterinarians usually recommend 

 bleeding and purging. Catarrh rarely attacks the American 

 fine-wooled sheep with sufficient violence, in summer, to 

 require the exhibition of remedies. I early found that 

 depletion, in catarrh, in our severe winter months, rapidly 

 produced that fatal prostration from which it is next to 

 impossible to recover the sheep entirely impossible, with- 

 out bestowing an amount of time and care on it, costing 

 far more than the price of any ordinary sheep. 



The best course is to prevent the disease by judicious 

 precautions. With that amount of attention which every 

 prudent flock-master should bestow on his sheep, the hardy 

 American Merino is little subject to it. Good, comfortable, 

 but well-ventilated shelters, constantly accessible to the 

 sheep in winter, with a proper supply of food regularly admin- 

 istered, is usually a sufficient safeguard; and after some 

 years of experience, during which I have tried a variety of 

 experiments on this disease, I resort to no other remedies 

 in other words, I do nothing for those occasional cases of 

 ordinary catarrh which arise in my flock ; and they never 

 prove fatal. 



MALIGNANT EPIZOOTIC CATARRH. In "Sheep Husbandry 

 in the South," from which the preceding paragraph is trans- 

 ferred, I give an extended account of a disease which 

 prevailed with destructive violence in the State of New York 

 in the winter of 1846-47. Some flock-masters lost half, 

 others three-quarters, and a few seven-eighths of their flocks. 

 One individual within a few miles of me lost five hundred 

 out of eight hundred another nine hundred out of one 

 thousand. But these severe losses fell mainly on the holders 

 of the delicate Saxon sheep, and perhaps, generally, on those 

 possessing neither the best accommodations, nor the greatest 

 degree of energy and skill. 



I lost about fifty sheep by the disease. Tip to February, my 

 sheep remained apparently perfectly sound, and they were in 

 good flesh. Each flock had excellent shelters, were fed 

 regularly, etc., and although sheep were beginning to perish 



