THE ROT IN SHEEP. 823 



ledged that tlie seeds of tliis disease will sometimes lie so occult 

 as to baffle all skill, and that no man can, with absolute certainty, 

 draw a flock tainted with the rot. There is another method, to 

 which men of inferior skill resort, which is more easily acquired. 

 They take the sheep's head betw^een their hands, and press down 

 the eyelids ; they thereby make the sheep turn its eyeball, so 

 that they get a view of the vessels in which the eyeball roUs. 

 If these are thin, red, and free of matter, they consider the sheep 

 as sound ; but if they are thick, of a dead white colour, and seem 

 as if there was some white matter in them, they are confident 

 she is rotten. This is a pretty general rule, and easily discerned ; 

 but I think it is not so certain as when they are judged by tlie 

 back ; for in firm heathy lands the eye of a sheep is far redder 

 than it is in sheep upon grassy lauds ; and in some boggy lands, 

 the eye is never very red, be the sheep ever so sound, so that 

 tliere you cannot so well judge by the eye ; but wlien you see 

 the eye of a sheep a good deal wliiter and thicker, and more 

 matter in it (I mean the vessels in which tlie eyeball rolls) than 

 the run of the flock amongst which it feeds, you have reason to 

 suspect it is not sound." 



In some instances the progress of the rot is very rapid, but 

 usually it is slow and insidious. At first the affected animals 

 appear to thrive very fast, but inactivity and dulness supervene ; 

 the mucous membranes become pallid, the flesh wastes, the general 

 surface of the skin loses its ruddy colour, becomes dry and devoid 

 of that oily condition which is natural to the fleece of the sheep. 

 As the disease progresses, the flanks become hollow, the back 

 rigid, weak and tender about the loins, as evinced by wincing 

 when this part is pressed by the hand, and the spine sticks out 

 prominently ; the fleece drops off in patches, the belly enlarges, 

 the eyes become yellow, and dropsical swellings appear in dif- 

 ferent parts of the body, particularly around the throat. There 

 is often much thirst, depravity of the appetite, diarrhoea, general 

 stupor, the pulse is weak, the heart's action tumultuous, and 

 anaemic murmurs are heard. As demonstrated by Delafond and 

 others, the blood is deficient in albumen, thin, watery, and on 

 this account the serum transudes through the walls of the vessels, 

 collects in the loose areolar tissue of the depending parts of the 

 body and in the cavities, constituting the condition of dropsy 

 which is seen in rot. 



