214 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



105°, or even as high as 107° or 108°, but in the benign form it 

 diminishes at the commencement of the eruption. In the 

 malignant it is slower and later in diminishing, more irregular, 

 and increases when suppuration occurs, becoming normal at 

 the period of dessication. A careful observance of the tempera- 

 ture is of great importance, in order that affected sheep may be 

 removed from the flock before any of the ordinary signs of the 

 malady can be detected, and before the disease becomes infectious. 

 By carefully watching and examining their flocks, some farmers 

 have been able to arrest the spread of the malady, and the course 

 they have adopted has been that of segregating the diseased ones 

 when the slightest rash made its appearance upon them. Mr. 

 Charles Fielder of Sparsholt, near AVinchester, says — " I em- 

 ployed two men to turn every sheep I had on my farm, and 

 minutely inspect every one of them ; and if they saw the 

 slightest appearance of any rash, or a single pustule showed 

 itself between the inside of the shoulder and the breast, where 

 the skin of the sheep generally looks white and clean, and 

 where it was sure to show itself first, / Jiad it immediately taken 

 away, jnitting the whole of the diseased together in one large field 

 in the middle of my farm, at a distance from any road, as a p7V- 

 teetion to my ncighlours. I followed the same course every 

 morning, by having all my sheep turned and closely inspected, 

 not looking to the trouble and expense, as I felt in my own 

 mind that it was the only remedy I had to stop the infection; as 

 I calculated, if I could only find out those sheep which had 

 taken the disease and were breeding it, Icfore it became infectious 

 to others, I should be able to arrest its j)rogress. Fortunately I 

 was right in my calculations, for they daily decreased in num- 

 bers, although they still kept faltering for a fortnight or three 

 weeks from the time I began turning them (particularly in one 

 flock where the Spanish sheep had been), before it, as I hoped, 

 ceased altogether, as I have not found a diseased one for some 

 time past." — (From the Farmers Magazine, vol. xvi., page 524, 

 quoted by Professor Simonds.) If separating tlie diseased from 

 the healthy sheep after the first symj)toms of the malady are 

 discernible by an ordinary observer has so far been sufficient to 

 arrest its spread, it can easily be understood that removal prior 

 to the appearance of the rash will yet prove more satisfactory. 

 Symptoms. — The first appreciable signs of the disease, after the 



