HOOP -HOT. 361 



cause which produced a local inflammation of the same 

 parts. 



When the malady has been well kept under during the 

 first summer of its attack, but not entirely eradicated, it will 

 almost or entirely disappear as cold weather approaches, and 

 not manifest itself again until the warm weather of the succeed- 

 ing summer. It then assumes a mitigated form ; the sheep are 

 not rapidly and simultaneously attacked; there seems to be less 

 inflammatory action in the diseased parts, and less constitu- 

 tional disturbance ; and the course of the disease is less malig- 

 nant, more tardy, and it more readily yields to treatment. 

 If well kept under tlie second summer, it is still milder the third. 

 A sheep will occasionally be seen to limp, but its condition 

 will scarcely be affected, and dangerous symptoms will rarely 

 supervene. One or two applications of remedies made during 

 the summer, will now suffice to keep the disease under, and 

 a little vigor in the treatment will entirely extinguish it. 



With all its fearful array of symptoms, can the hoof-rot be 

 cured in its first attack on a flock ? The worst case can be 

 promptly cured, as I know by repeated experiments. Take a 

 single sheep, put it by itself, and administer the remedies 

 daily, after the English fashion, or as I shall presently prescribe, 

 and there is not an ovine disease which more surely yields to 

 treatment. But, as already remarked, in this country where 

 sheep are so cheap and labor in the summer months so dear, 

 it would be out of the question for an extensive flock-master 

 to attempt to keep each sheep by itself, or to make a daily 

 application of remedies. There is not a flock-master within 

 my knowledge who has ever pretended to apply his remedies 

 oftener than once a week, or regularly as often as that ; 

 and not one in ten makes any separation between the 

 diseased and healthy sheep of a flock into which the malady 

 has been once introduced. The consequence necessarily is 

 that though a cure is effected of the sheep then diseased, it 

 has infected or inoculated others and these in turn scatter 

 the contagion, before they are cured. There is not a particle 

 of doubt nay, I know, by repeated observation, that a sheep 

 once entirely cured may again contract the disease, and thus 

 the malady performs a perpetual circuit in the flock. Fortu- 

 nately, however, the susceptibility to contract the disease 

 diminishes, according to my observation, with every succeeding 

 attack; and fortunately also, as already stated, succeeding 

 attacks, other things being equal, become less and less 

 virulent. 



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