58 SAIAI-L-POX IN SIIKKP. 



nued there up to this time. She is of the Irish breed, and about a 

 year old, and was purchased, with some others, at Bristol, in August 

 last. A few davs after they came home the moutli and foot com- 

 plaint [eczema epizootica] shewed itself among them ; but from this 

 thev quickly recovered, and are now in perfect health, although 

 rather low in condition. I saw this heifer yesterday, and could detect 

 no appearances of ill -health. After she has been with the sheep a 

 sufficient time for your present purpose, I should like you to have 

 her at the College for any other experiments you may wish to have 

 recourse to ; for I need scarcely say, that I am most anxious to avoid 

 the possibility of such a disease as sheep-pox being conveyed to my 

 farm. Believe me, dear Sir, truly yours, 



"John Thomas Stroud." 



Mr. Statliam wrote as follows : 



"Datchett, Oct. 10th, 1847. 

 " Dear Sir, — In reply to your inquiries, I beg to inform you, that 

 the heifer does not shew any symptoms which would lead me to sup- 

 pose that her health has suffered in the least degree from being placed 

 with the infected sheep. When first put into the paddock she was 

 closely penned with nearly thirty sheep which were then affected with 

 the smaU-pox in its most contagious stage, and therefore I am of opinion 

 that if it it were communicable to other animals she must have taken 

 it ; at all events, it seems impossible to have carried out the experi- 

 ment in a more efficient way. Since you were here another of the 

 Merinos has been attacked ; and as Mr. Ceely was most anxious to 

 possess a sheep in the earliest stage of the disorder, I have forwarded 

 it to Aylesbury. Is it not singular that this animal should have con- 

 tinued well so long, as it had been with the others from the first ? The 

 forty-three Downs which were isolated are going on well ; these are 

 all that have escaped the disease — I might say, all that are saved out 

 of the flock ; for those which have survived the attack are so reduced 

 in flesh and value, that they might almost as well have died. I am 

 glad to see by the papers that the subject is taken up by the Govern- 

 ment, and I do hope that the importation of foreign sheep will be 

 prohibited, at least for a time ; for, depend upon it, if this disorder 

 spreads, it will prove one of the greatest calamities that the agricul- 

 turists of this country ever sustained. Its effects are ruinous, and 

 so contagious is it, that I shall fear to put any fresh sheep into the 



