PARTURIENT FEVER. 335 



object is to open the bowels, and should the above not operate 

 in eight or ten hours, it should be repeated. After that, the 

 nitre and molasses are given night and morning in an 

 ordinary quart bottle of gruel until there is an abatement of 

 the fever, when the nitre is discontinued. Frequently, in fact 

 generally, after they have been down three or four days if 

 they live so long the brown discharge which has been 

 noticed passing from the vagina becomes putrid, showing 

 that the foetus is dead. In such cases a small quantity of 

 belladona applied dry on the end of the finger is applied 

 to the mouth of the womb every hour until it is sufficiently 

 relaxed to allow of the removal of the decaying mass. After 

 that has been done, the womb is thoroughly syringed with 

 warm water, to which milk is sometimes added" The ewes' 

 position is made as comfortable as possible, and always 

 changed once or twice a day. Where the ewe brings forth 

 her young alive she recovers more rapidly. The remedies 

 and treatment, as you will see, are perfectly simple and 

 easily tried by any flock owner. The great secret of success 

 with it, as with a large majority of diseases, I believe is good 

 nursing. * * * Since my flock have received a small 

 quantity of grain, say half a pint per head daily, before 

 lambing,* they have been quite free from any signs of that 

 trouble. As an illustration that a small quantity of feed is a 

 preventive, a flock belonging to one of my friends was 

 divided, upon going into winter quarters, into two lots, one 

 of sixty old ewes, the other of thirty two-year-olds. The 

 former received a very small quantity of corn daily the 

 latter only hay. His losses from the former lot was two 

 from the latter fourteen head; though the younger ones 

 generally escaped. * * * 



Yours faithfully, SAM'L THORNE." 



While an over -fleshy, plethoric condition is obviously 

 improper for breeding ewes, there is not a particle of doubt 

 that both Mr. Seaman and Mr. Thome are correct in the 

 position not only as respects the attack of parturient fever, 

 but all other maladies and difficulties connected with parturi- 

 tion that ewes should not be suffered to fall off seriously in 

 flesh during the period of gestation. Even if the ewe enters 

 that period in too high condition, it is safer to keep her there 

 than it is to reduce her. It would be better, if we could have 



* In a subsequent letter Mr. Thorne says: "I commence with a small quantity 

 of grain eight weeks before lambing, which is soon increased to half a pint each." 



