PUBLIC NOTICE OF THE DISEASE. 53 



several counties of England, and thus from London 

 the contagion may radiate far and wide. 



It cannot be said that these hazardous proceedings 

 were continued for want of information, as the daily 

 journals frequently contained letters relating to the 

 subject, and we had taken care, from the first, to keep 

 the matter before the public, and to point out the 

 imminent danger of allowing healthy sheep to be 

 brouiiht in contact with diseased. To what extent the 

 mischief might have gone cannot be surmised ; but it 

 is clear that thousands of animals would have been 

 sacrificed had not the vigilance of the Government 

 and the city authorities put a stop to it. 



To corroborate the statement, that the attention of 

 the pubhc was called to the existence of the malady, 

 we will here give a letter, written to the editor of the 

 Mark Lane Express, by Captain J. S. Carr, Hono- 

 rary Member of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England. 



" TO THE EDITOR OF ' THE MARK-LANE EXPRESS.' 



" Sir, — I observe with regret, in your journal of the 27th ult., a 

 statement of the distressing fact that the sheep- pox has been brought 

 by some recent importation from Hamburgh to London ; and as I 

 beheve this alarming disease to be hitherto unknown in the British 

 islands, I hasten to avail myself of your valuable and widely-circu- 

 lating paper to give my friends, the farmers of England, a short 

 description of the disease and its prevention ; and shall also submit 

 to the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society all possible further 

 information by the next mail. 



" The sheep-pox appears occasionally in different and widely-sepa- 

 rated localities on the continent. It is highly infectious, although 

 not thought to be epidemic. There arc four stages of this disease, 

 which commences with loss of appetite, swelled eyelids, dulness, and 

 a staggering gait, with slight fever. In three or four days small 

 purple spots appear (easily discoverable where there is least wool, as 



