Book VII. DISEASES OF SHEEP. 1Q6S 



awav from the nose and mouth in large quantities. Sometimes after death the bloody serum is found 

 suffused throughout the skin as in the blood striking of skins. 



7218. The claveau or sheep pox is also another variety of this disease, in which it takes on a pustular 

 form About the third dav small variola? appear : sometimes they are rather blotches than pustules. The 

 weakness is usually extreme, and the putridity great. This form of the disease is seldom seen with us ; 

 but is still known on the Continent, where the pastures are very poor and low, and the general keep 

 meagre 



7«4y. The treatment of all these in nowise differs from that directed under the inflammatory putrid 

 fever of the ox ; the doses of medicine being about a third of what is directed for them. 



7250 Malignant epidemic or murrain. Sometimes an epidemic prevails, which greatly resembles the 

 murrain of oxen : in appearances, termination, and treatment, it resembles the malignant epidemic of 



7251. Peripnetimbnia or inflamed lungs, rising of the lights, glanderous rot, hose, t(C. These terms are 

 all modifications of an inflamed state of the viscera of the chest, caught by undue exposure, bad pas- 

 turage and often from over-driving. The cough, the tremblings, the redness of the eyes and nostrils, and 

 the distillation of a fluid from them, with the heavings and hot breath, are all similar to those which 

 characterise the pneumonia or rising of the lights in oxen. We remember to have seen the disease 

 strongly marked in the February of 1808, on a farm in the neighbourhood of Streatham ; where eleven 

 sheep were attacked almost together, after a very stormy night. They were first affected with a loss of 

 appetite ; next with a fixed stedfast look, which was common to every one. After this, they reeled about, 

 fell backwards, and became convulsed. When seen, five were already dead, whose internal appearances 

 fully confirmed the nature of the disease. The rest recovered by bleeding and drenching, with drenches 

 composed of nitre and tartar emetic. Sometimes the symptoms of pneumonia do not kill immediately, 

 but degenerate into an ulceration of the lungs; which is then called the glanderous rot. This stage is 

 always fatal: the others may, by early attention, be combated by judicious treatment, as detailed under 

 the same disease in oxen. . . . 



7252. A chronic cough in sheep, when not symptomatic of rot, is always cured by a change of pasturage, 

 particularly into a salt marsh. 



7253 Inflammation of the stomach occurs from various causes. A common one arises from eating 

 noxious vegetables ; and produces the affections termed tremblings. It also produces the grass ill in 

 lambs- which latter is always accompanied with black, fetid tieces, and is readily removed by an ounce 

 of castor oil ; while the former usually yields to half an ounce of oil of turpentine, beaten up with the 

 yolk of an egg. Some herbs ;as A tropnr Belladonna^ when eaten produce spasmodic aff'ections.wluch are 

 called by shepherds the leaping ill : in such cases, the watery solution of aloes {Vet. Pharm. 6585.) in doses 

 of two o'r three ounces is useful. Daffy's elixir we have also known to be given with good effect. 



7254. The hove, blast, or wind colic. ' Sheep are as liable to be distended with an enormous collection 

 within the maw as oxen. An instrument, similar to that invented by Dr. Monro, is also made for them; 

 and when not relieved by these means, the same remedies are applicable as are directed tor oxen. (69:>"<.) 



7255. A wind colic will also sometimes affect sheep more from the quality than the quantity ot what 

 thev eat : it is best relieved by an ounce of castor or salad oil with an ounce of gin. 



7256. Inflamed liver, blood rot, or hot yellows, are liver affections, arising from fever settling in that 

 organ ; or from obstructed bile irritating it. Sometimes there are great marks of fever; and at others 

 more of putridity ; according to which, treat as may be gathered from ox pathology. 



7257 Jaundice also now and then occurs, when refer to that disease in oxen. (,6962.) 



7258. Dysentery, gall scour, braiy, are all affections brought on by sudden changes of temperature, or 

 of undue moisture acting with cold pasturage. It is often seen in sultry autumns ; and, by a judicious 

 observer has been said to be peculiarly frequent in hogs or sheep of one year. Like other dysenteries it is 

 frequent in sultry autumns. The above authority recommends, when its origin may be supposed to arise 

 from a previous costive state, to remove the affected (as is practised by the store-masters ot Scotland) into 

 turnips. The general medical treatment does not differ from ox braxy. 6961.) 



7259 Scouring is the diarrhoea of sheep, and in very hot weather soon carries them off It should be 

 early attended to, by abstracting the affected, and housing them. The treatment is seen under diarrhoea 

 of oxen (6960.), which it closely resembles. _ 



7"fi0 Pinning tag-belt, break-share. The two former are only the adhesion ot the tail to the wool, 

 and" the excoriation brought on by diarrhcea ; the latter is the diarrhoea itself, known to some by this 



term. ... , , , , 



7261. The rot in sheep is also called great rot, and hydropic rot, &c. ; but it is more popularly known by 

 the single term of rot. Many causes have been assigned for it, as the Fasclola hepatica, or fluke worm ; 

 some particular plants eaten' as food ; ground eating ; snails, and other ingesta; but, as most of the sup. 

 posed deleterious herbs have been tried by way of experiment, and have failed to produce the disease, so 

 it is attributable to some other cause. Neither is there satisfactory reason to suppose that the fluke worm 

 is the original cause of it, but a consequence, since we know that the biliary vessels of other animals, as 

 horses, asses, rats, &c, often have them : and above all, because that they are not always present in the 

 rotted subject From long experience, and the almost invariable effect produced by a humid state of 

 atmosphere, soil, and product, we are warranted in concluding these are the actual and immediate 

 agents : perhaps the saturated food itself is sufficient to do it. The morning dew has been supposed equal 

 to it Bakewell when his sheep were past service, used to rot them purposely, that they might not pass 

 into other hand's. This he always readily did by overflowing his pastures. But great differences of 

 opinion exist as to the quantity, form, and varieties of moisture, productive of this iatal disease. It is 

 said that land on which water Hows, but does not stagnate, will not rot, however moist : but this is con- 

 ttadicted by the experience of Bakewell, who used merely to flood his lands a tew times only to rot his 

 sheep It is also said that they are safe from rot on Irish bogs, salt marshes, and spring-flooded meadows, 

 which experience seems to verify. It is also said that the very hay made from unsound land will rot ; 

 but this wants confirmation. When salt marshes are found injurious, it is only in years when the rain 

 has saturated fir rather super-saturated such marshes. That putrid exhalations unaccompanied with 

 moisture can occasion rot wants confirmation also; for these commonly go together, and it is difficult to 

 separate their effects. It is not, perhaps, the actual quantity of water immediately received by land, but 

 the capacity of that land to retain the moisture, which makes it particularly of a rotting quality 



7268 The signs of rottenness are sufficiently familiar to persons about sheep. Ihey first lose flesh, and 

 what remains is flabby and pale ; they also lose their vivacity. The naked parts, as the lips, tongue, S.C., 

 look livid, and are alternately hot and cold in the advanced stages. The eyes look sad snd glassy, the 

 breath is fetid, the urine small in quantity and high-coloured ; and the bowels are at one time costive, 

 and at another affected with a black purging. The pelt will come off on the slightest pull m almost all 

 cases. The disease has different degrees of rapidity, but is always fatal at last 1 his difference m degree 

 occasions some rotted sheep to thrive well under its progress to a certain stage, when they suddenly ran 

 off, and the disease pursues the same course with the rest. Some graziers know this crisis ot declension, 

 as it has been called, and kill their sheep for market in the immediate nick ot time with no loss, in 

 these cases, no signs of the disease are to be traced by ordinary inspectors, but the exigence of the flukes 

 and still more, a certain state of liver and of its secretions, are characteristic marks to the wary ana 



7263. The treatment of rot is seldom successful unless when it is early commenced or when of a mild 

 nature ; a total change of food is the first indication, and of that to a dry wholesome kind : all the farina 

 are good, as the meals of wheat, barlev, oats, peas, beans, &c. Carrot, havedore good mixed with these: 



