Book VII. DISEASES OF SHEEP. lOlS 



6510. Inflammation of the stomach occurs flrom various causes. A common one arises from eating 

 noxious vegetables ; and produces the affections termed tremblings. It also produces the grass ill in 

 lambs; which latter is always accompanied with black, foetid fjeces, and is readily removed by an ounce 

 of castor oil ; while the former usually yields to half an ounce of oil of turpentine, beaten up with the 

 yolk of an egg. Some herbs (as Atropa belladonna,) when eaten produce spasmodic affections, which are 

 called by shepherds the leaping ill: in such cases the watery solution of aloes {Vet. Pharm. 5QIQ.) 

 in doses of two or three ounces is useful. Daffy's elixir we have also known to be given with good 

 eflfect. 



6511. The hove, blast, or wind colic. Sheep are as liable to be distended with an enormous collection 

 within the maw as oxen. An instrument, similar to that invented by Dr. Monro, is also made for 

 them ; and when not relieved by these means, the same remedies are applicable, as are directed for oxen. 

 (6259.) 



6512. A wind colic will also sometimes affect sheep more from the quality than the quantity of what 

 they eat ; it is best relieved by an ounce of castor or salad oil with an ounce of gin. 



6513. Inflamed liver, blood rot, or hot yellows, are liver affections, arising from fever settling in that 

 organ ; or from obstructed bile irritating it. Sometimes there are great marks of fever ; and at others 

 more of putridity ; according to which, treat as may be gathered from ox pathology. 



6514. Jaundice also now and then occurs, when refer to that disease in oxen. (6268.) 



6515. Dysentery, gall scour, braxy, are all affections brought on by sudden changes of temperature, or 

 of undue moisture acting with cold pasturage. It is often seen in sultry autumns : treat as under ox 

 braxy. (6267.) 



6516. Scouring is the diarrhoea of sheep, and in very hot weather soon carries them off. It should be 

 early attended to, by abstracting the affected, and housing them. The treatment is seen under diarrhoea 

 of oxen (6266.), which it closely resembles. 



6517. Pinning, tag-belt, break-share. The two former are only the adhesion of the tail to the wool, 

 and the excoriation brought on by diarrhoea ; the latter is the diarrhoea itself, known to some by thi 

 term. 



6518. The rot in sheep is also called great rot, and hydropic rot, &c. ; but it is more 

 popularly known by the single term of rot. Many causes have been assigned for it, as the 



fasciola hepatica, or fluke worm ; some particular plants eaten as food ; ground eating ; 

 snails, and other ingesta : but, as most of the supposed deleterious herbs have been tried 

 by way of experiment, and have failed to produce the disease, so it is attributable to 

 some other cause. Neither is there reason to suppose that the fluke worm occasions it, 

 since we know that the biliary vessels of other animals, as horses, asses, rats, &c., often 

 have them : and above all, because that they are not always present in the rotted subject. 

 From long experience, and the almost invariable effect produced by a humid state of 

 atmosphere, soil, and product j we are warranted in concluding these are the actual and 

 immediate agents : perhaps the saturated food itself is sufficient to do it. The morning 

 dew has been supposed equal to it. Bakewell, when his slieep were past service, 

 used to rot them purposely, that they might not pass into other hands. This he always 

 readily did by overflowing his pastures. But great differences of opinion exist as to the 

 quantity, form, and varieties of moisture, productive of this fatal disease. It is said that 

 land on which water flows, but does not stagnate, will not rot, however moist : but 

 this is contradicted by the experience of Bakewell, who used merely to flood his lands 

 a few times only to rot his sheep. It is also said that they are safe from rot on Irish 

 bogs, salt marshes, and spring flooded meadows, which experience seems to verify. It 

 is also said, that the very hay made from unsound land will rot j but this wants con- 

 firmation. When salt marshes are found injurious it is only in such years when the 

 rain has saturated, or rather super-saturated such marshes. That putrid exhalations un- 

 accompanied with moisture can occasion rot wants confirmation also : for these com- 

 monly go together, and it is difficult to separate their effects. It is not, perhaps, the 

 actual quantity of water immediately received by land, but the capacity of that land 

 to retain the moisture, which makes it particularly of a rotting quality. 



651 9. The dgns of rottenness are sufficiently familiar to persons about sheep. They 

 first lose flesh, and what remains is flabby and pale ; they lose also their vivacity. The 

 naked parts, as the lips, tongue, &c., look livid, and are alternately hot and cold in the 

 advanced stages. The eyes look sad and glassy, the breath is foetid, the urine small in 

 quantity and high-colored ; and the bowels are at one time costive, and at another 

 affected with a black purging. The pelt will come off on the slightest pull in almost 

 all cases. The disease has different degrees of rapidity, but is always fatal at last. 

 This difference in degree occasions some rotted sheep to thrive well under its progress 

 to a certain stage, when they suddenly fall off, and the disease pursues the same course 

 with the rest. Some graziers know this crisis of declension, as it has been called, and 

 kill their sheep for market at the immediate nick of time with no loss. In these 

 cases, no signs of the disease are to be traced by ordinary inspectors, but the ex- 

 istence of the flukes, and still more, a certain state of liver and of its secretions, 

 are characteristic marks to the wary and experienced. 



6520. The treatment of rot is seldom successful unless when it is early commenced, 

 or when of a mild nature ; a total change of food is the first indication, and of that to a 

 dry wholesome kind : all the farina are good, as the mejds of wheat, barley, oats, pease, 

 beans, &c. Carrots have done good mixed with these : broom, burnet, elder, and mellilot, 

 as diuretics, have also been recommended ; but it is necessary to observe, that there is 

 seldom any ventral effusion but in the latter stages of the complaint. As long as the 

 liver is not wholly disorganized, the cure may be hoped by a simple removal of the 



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