THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 395 



others have assigned bad and unwholesome food ?,s the 

 cause of the rot. A sudden fall in condition may ac- 

 company the disease without having induced it. A 

 sheep may continue to fill its belly, and yet fall off. It 

 is the cause of the transition from fatness to leanness, 

 and not the transition itself that ought to be looked to. 

 If that cause be hunger, rot will not be the consequence, 

 but the usual effects of starvation will follow. It is 

 well known that on healthy pastures, whether so rich 

 as to keep sheep fat, or so poor as only to bring them 

 into ordinary condition, the rot is not known. Soft 

 rank grasses, whether abundant or scarce, invariably 

 occasion the disease. Indeed it is now so well under- 

 stood that rank grasses act as a sort of poison on the 

 stomachs of sheep, that the rot is very easily avoided. 



Cure. — The cure, in the first stage of the disease, 

 does not present many difficulties. The first object is 

 to free the stomach and intestines from their pernicious 

 contents by means of a purgative, such as common or 

 Glauber's salt ; and when that is accomplished, whole- 

 some food will most probably complete the cure. 



The medicine to which we may look with greatest 

 confidence in the advanced stages of rot, appears to be 

 mercury. It would, perhaps, be improper to administer 

 this internally. The safest, and most effective method 

 of applying it, is in the form of the common blue oint- 

 ment, and a trial of this is strongly recommended to 

 those whose flocks are liable to rot. It should be ap- 

 plied to the bare skin, on the region of the liver, and 

 the size of a nut rubbed on it till it is all dried up 

 twice a day for a week or ten days. This, in con- 

 junction with wholesome food, will in all probability 

 prove to be the most effectual treatment. Mercury is 

 well known to be a specific for the diseased liver of the 



