296 THE DISEASES OF SHEEP. 



apparatus should be aided, when necessary, by health- 

 giving foods, such as oats (crushed preferred), bran, 

 crushed linseed, and ground malt. Corn, beans, peas, 

 and wheat are good when given in their proper place and 

 quantity. Also thousand headed or other cabbage. Mut- 

 ton grown on ling and heather is sweeter and more sat- 

 isfying than that of trough or manger- fed sheep. Tur- 

 nips and swedes alone are very bad, especially when filthy. 

 They produce flesh but no blood. 



" I have seen sheep, especially lambing ewes, that have 

 been fed ad libitum on 'swedes, without any complemen- 

 tary food, die in dozens, their carcasses laden with fat, 

 but not a teacupful of blood in the veins of any of them. 

 In the case of breeding ewes, I have seen the recently 

 born lambs the subjects of internal dropsies. Again, I 

 have seen ewes fed in the same way, on swedes which 

 have been forced with artificial manures, especially phos- 

 phatic manure, die in dozens from milk fever (so called in 

 some districts), while their lambs have succumbed to joint- 

 ill. Prof, Robertson says he has, by way of experiment, 

 produced these diseases at will." (Walley.) 



THRUSH OR APHTHA 



Has a benign as well as a malignant form. The benign 

 form usually attacks lambs, and the malignant may be 

 communicated to them by the milk. Both forms are at- 

 tributed to a fungus, the benign to that known as ' oidi- 

 um albicans/ The benign is short-lived. It is character- 

 ized by a whitish, furred eruption in the mouth, with a 

 little fever and diarrhea. 



The malignant form not only has eruptions in the 

 mouth, but also on the lips and about the body, with 

 bleeding ulceration, diarrhea, or dysentery, and even pu- 

 trefactive fever and abscesses about the head and lungs, 

 constituting pyaemia (purulent contamination of the blood). 



Remedy. — Alum, borax, sulphurous acid, chlorine, or 



