DISCHARGE FROM THE NOSE. 207 



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assured that there is something wrong in his system of management, 

 and that which, in the majority of cases, is the root of the evil, is too 

 rich pasture, probably succeeding to spare feed. A dose of salts 

 should, therefore, be given to each sheep, and the pasture of the whole 

 should be changed. 



SECTION VII. 



COLD, AND DISCHARGE FROM THE NOSE, &C. 



Here again, from the cruel and impolitic abandonment of the sheep, 

 hundreds of them are lost during the winter. When they are drenched 

 to the skin by continual rains, or half smothered with snow, and have 

 not even a hedge a yard high to break the biting blast, can it be won- 

 dered that cold and cough should be frequent in the flock ; and that 

 it should be severe and unmanageable, and even occasionally run on 

 to inflammation of the lungs, and consumption and death] 1 am not 

 an advocate for close housing, or too much nursing. lam aware that 

 we may thus render the sheep unnaturally tender, and more exposed 

 to catarrh and all its consequences; but I would tell the farmer, that 

 the fleece of the sheep, however thick, is an insufficient protection in 

 cold and wet weather, and an open and bleak situation. 



The symptoms of catarrh are heaviness, watery eyes, running from 

 the nose. The discharge is thick, and clings about the nostril, and 

 obstructs it, and the sheep is compelled to suspend its grazing almost 

 every minute, and with violent eflbrts blow away the obstruction. 

 Cough frequently accompanies this discharge; and if there is much, 

 fever, it will be shown by loss of appetite and rapid weakness. 



There is a discharge from the nostrils which sometimes attacks the 

 whole flock, and if it is not attended by wasting in flesh or loss of 

 appetite, the farmer does not regard it; for he knows from experience, 

 that, in spite of all he can do, it will probably last through the winter, 

 and disappear as the spring advances. When, however, he perceives 

 this nasal gleet, he should keep a sharp look-out over his flock, and 

 if there is one that stays behind, or will not eat, he should catch him, 

 and remove him to a warmer situation, and bleed him, and give him 

 the laxative and fever drinks, and nurse him with mashes and hay. 

 If a second or a third sheep should fail in the same manner, he must 

 indeed look about him; there is danger to all, for the inflammation 

 has spread itself from the throat down the windpipe to the air-passages 

 of the lungs, and a very dangerous disease, called bronchitis, is pro- 

 duced. He must move the whole flock to a more sheltered situation. 

 He must move them to a pasture of somewhat different character. He 

 must take them from their turnips or their hay, and give them what 

 other food his farm will aSbrd. He should, if he will take the trouble 

 to do so (and he would be amply repaid for that trouble), bleed them 

 all round, and physic them all. This is strange doctrine to the farmer, 



