Variola : Shceppox. 347 



oil with half a dram of gum myrrh. Or the vesicles or sores 

 may be washed after each milking with a solution of 2 drams 

 hyposulphite of soda in 1 quart water. 



SHEEPPOX. VARIOLA OVINA. 



Synonyms. Pocks; Peltrot ; Clavelee, Picotte, (Fr.). 



Definition. An acute febrile affection, eminently contagious, 

 prevailing epizootically in sheep and goats, characterized by 

 early and marked hyperthermia, and general constitutional dis- 

 order, followed by the appearance on the bare or merely hairy 

 portions of the skin, of diffuse redness becoming intensified in 

 points, a rounded papular eruption, passing into vesicles, pus- 

 tules and scabs, which latter dry up and drop off in 15 to 20 days. 



Pathogenesis. Beside sheep and goats which contract the dis- 

 ease by exposure, the following genera have been successfully 

 inoculated : ox, dog, pig, horse. 



Forms. Two typical forms are recognized : («) the discrete, 

 regular or benign, in which the vesicles remain relatively few, 

 and well isolated from each other, and (b) the confluent, irregular 

 or malignant in which the vesicles are generally diffused over 

 the body, even on the parts covered by wool, and set so close 

 together that they merge into each other forming extensive con- 

 tinuous lesions. Other forms are the hirmorrhagic, purple or 

 black sheeppox, the volante or intermittent kind, etc. 



Geographical Distribution. Formerly common in Central and 

 Western Europe, it still prevails continuously in the Balkans, 

 the Danubian Principalities, Italy, Spain, the South of France 

 and Algiers. Like other forms of variola, its permanent home is 

 in Asia. 



Causes. Long before the advent of modern bacteriology, 

 sheeppox was held to be always and everywhere the result of 

 contagion alone. Whenever it entered a new locality it was as 

 the result of the importation of an affected sheep or one of its 

 products ; insular places like England maintained a permanent 

 immunity, though the disease prevailed on the other side of the 

 narrow straits or channel ; yet when imported (1847 and 1862) 

 it demonstrated a general susceptibility of the flocks on exposure 

 or inoculation ; more distant lands (America, Australia, Tasmania, 



