[163] 



the fly from depositing its eggs. Blacklock says that the 

 larvse may be dislodged by blowing tobacco smoke through 

 the tail of a pipe into the nostril. The Mexican shepherds 

 apply calomels to the parts. 



Lambs when first dropped may appear strong and healthy, 

 yet in a few days they begin to droop, and finally die. If 

 you open the stomach of such lambs, in some cases you will 

 find it packed and distorted with a hard curd, which was the 

 <3ause of their death. The remedy is to feed the breeding 

 ewes with some kind of a mild alkali, like ashes, for some 

 time previous to their lambs being dropped. 



ROT. 



This is one of the most fatal diseases with which sheep 

 are afflicted. On dissecting sheep that die of this disorder, 

 a great number of insects called ( flukes ' are found in the 

 liver. That these flukes are the cause of the rot therefore 

 is evident, but to explain how they come into the liver is 

 not so easy. It is probable that they are swallowed while 

 in the egg state. The eggs deposited in the tender germ are 

 conveyed into the stomach and intestines of the animal, 

 whence they are received into the lacteal vessels, carried off 

 into the chyle, and pass into the blood. Nor do they 

 meet with any obstruction until they arrive at the capillary 

 vessels of the liver. Here the blood filterates through the 

 branches, through the extreme branches, answering to those 

 of the vina porta in the human body. The receiving vessels 

 are too minute to admit the impregnated ova, which, adher- 

 ing to the membrane, produce these animalculse that feed 

 upon the liver and destroy the sheep. They much resemble 

 the flat fish called plaice, and are sometimes as large as a silver 

 two-pence. It is therefore easy to conceive that sheep may, 

 on wet ground especially, take multitudes of these eggs in 

 their food, and that the stomach and viscera of the sheep 

 being a proper residence for them, they of course hatch, and 



