212 DISEASES OP SHEEP. 



serious loss. The farmer, however, is not always sufficiently watch- 

 ful about this, and too frequently will not believe that his shet*p have 

 the rot until the conviction is forced upon him by the loss of some 

 of his flock, and the wasting condition of many more. 



This thriving period soon passes over, and the sheep begin to 

 waste much more rapidly than they had acquired condition. First, 

 there is a perceptible alteration in the countenance, — a depressed, 

 unhealthy appearance, accompanied by increased 3'ello\vness. Ilie 

 tongue especially becomes pale and livid. The animal is feverish ; 

 the heat of the mouth, and the panting, and heaving of the flanks, and 

 general dulness, sufficiently indicate this. Some degree of cough 

 coincs on ; some discharge from the nose ; or the breath begins to be 

 exceedingly offensive. The sheep is sometimes costive; at other 

 times it purges with a violence which nothing can arrest, and the 

 matter discharged is unusually oflTensive, and often streaked with 

 blood. And now the soft mellow feel of the sheep in condition is no 

 longer found, but there is an unhealthy flabbiness; even where there 

 is but little left between the skin and the bone, there is a flabby — a 

 kind of piilr/ feeling; the parts give way, but they have lost their 

 elasticity, and they do not plump up again : there is also a crackling 

 sound when the loins or back are pressed upon. The farmer knows 

 what this is, and what he is to expect, both in the sheep and the ox : 

 very few of them recover after this crackling has once been heard. 



At an uncertain period of the disease the sheep usually become 

 what the graziers call c?inckered, that is, a considerable swelling 

 appears under the chin. If this is punctured, sometimes a watery 

 fluid escapes, and sometimes matter; and occasionally the swelling 

 bursts, and an ulcer, very difficult to heal, follows. 



The bowels, which are variable at first, become at length very 

 relaxed. A fetid purging comes on of all colours, and which pursues 

 its course in defiance of every astringent. 



The wool begins to fall off in patches : it is loose all over the ani- 

 mal, and easily pulled off, and there is a white scurfiness adhering 

 to its roots. The disease now still more rapidly proceeds ; and while 

 the sheep loses flesh every day, and every rib and every bone of the 

 back can be plainly felt, his belly increases — he gets dropsical. The 

 end is not then far off. 



The progress of the disease is more or less rapid, according to the 

 violence of the attack, or the strength or weakness of the sheep, or 

 the care that is bestowed on him, or the utter neglect to which he is 

 abandoned. The animal occasionally dies in two months after the 

 first evident symptom of rot, but usually four or five or six months 

 elapse before the animal is perfectly exhausted. 



The farmer is not much accustomed to examine his sheep after 

 death. It would be better for him if he paid more attention to this, 

 for he would discover the nature, and probably the cause, of many a 

 complaint that is committing sad ravages in his flock. The appear- 

 ances exhibited in the sheep that has died of the rot are very singular. 



