ii INTRODUCTION. 



a very great prospect of wealth before him. This is in great contrast 

 to the days, not so very long ago, when sheep medicine and 

 surgery were regarded lightly and so little appreciated that it was 

 scarcely worth while for a veterinary surgeon to devote time to 

 acquiring special knowledge in relation to sheep. 



Mention has been made of the knowledge brought down by 

 tradition. Within recent years what are undoubtedly very old 

 diseases or affections, some not even recognised, others surmised, 

 but in no way understood, have been brought under skilled observa- 

 tion, often with the result that they are now kept well in check. 

 In other cases the cause has been discovered, but at present the 

 remedy is awaited, though vigilant experimenters are constantly 

 at work to find a cure. 



There are two diseases, especially, which have been 

 brought to light, and which await defeat the strongyle worms 

 in the fourth stomach, and Johne's disease. It is difficult to 

 express how much these diseases have influenced sheep -raising, 

 but owing to the want of recognition of their existence, many very 

 strange things have been perpetrated in shepherding, and very 

 ridiculous conclusions have been drawn as to the influence of 

 matters which could not be guilty of the wrongs ascribed to them. 

 Some more specific information will be given in the subsequent 

 chapters in connection with these two diseases, but before going 

 on to the subject of shepherding, it is well to try to get the shepherd 

 to recognise that these diseases exist, and that the want of this 

 recognition has been misleading to him in many ways. 



It is very commonly held that the sheep is a delicate animal, 

 always ready to take ailments, and, having taken them, being 

 of such poor constitution that it will, in most cases, die. In fact, 

 the old idea that it is of little use to doctor a sheep still holds, 

 though not to such an undeviating extent as in the past. Sheep 

 are not really weak-constitutioned animals ; but because it is not 

 until sheep are seriously ill, or inconvenienced, that they show 

 symptoms of distress, it has been assumed that they are delicate. 

 Sheep in domestication lead widely different lives compared 

 with their forbears who lived in a wild and indigenous state. 

 One may say that practically everything is altered ; they live 

 according to the will of man, and not to Nature. They are taken 

 to conditions altogether different ; they are fed with foods quite 

 unnatural to them, and often they are kept within a very narrow 

 range, enforcing them to cover the same ground with quick repeti- 

 tion, and they are maintained in large flocks. Moreover, the 

 " improvement " wrought on sheep to increase their flesh-forming 

 capacities, and the yield of wool, must have some constitutional 

 influences foreign to them in a natural condition, and not necessarily 

 to the maintenance of their powers to resist hardships. Unlike the 



