DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. 215 



WOOL-BALLING IN LAMBS. 



This is not quite the same thing as referred to above, but often 

 of serious import to the lamb who acquires a taste for wool or by 

 accident takes it from about the udder of the ewe while sucking. 

 It entangles the curd in the first stomach and leads to flatulent 

 colic, constipation, and often to death. 



Treatment. Ewes should be clatted or close clipped about the 

 region where lambs are liable to take in stray strands of wool. 

 Adults as well as lambs should be given repeated doses of oil, 

 such as castor oil first, and afterwards linseed oil, as these things 

 enable the patient to pass out the bulk of the wool, and they help 

 break up a tangled curd. The concretions of the adult which have 

 become hard and have a nucleus of some foreign body, as a bit of 

 wood or metal, are not likely to be broken up by any treatment, but 

 when of no great size are not infrequently passed in the dung as 

 a result of an aperient dose. If then, members of a flock are known 

 to have these obstructions, it may be well to give a dose in time. 



INFLAMMATION OF THE STOMACH OR ABOMASUM. 



The fourth compartment of the stomach is often referred to as 

 the true stomach. The abomasum is its anatomical name. In- 

 flammation of this organ was formerly attributed to a variety of 

 causes, but it is now generally recognised to be due to the presence 

 of myriads of parasites of small thread-like form. Strongles of 

 several kinds, outbreaks of which have more than decimated the 

 lamb flocks in autumn and winter in districts as wide apart as 

 Lincolnshire and Somersetshire. 



Symptoms. Scouring of a persistent kind, followed by wasting 

 and loosening of the wool and the usual symptoms of ill-doing. 

 There is what may be called a negative symptom which differ- 

 entiates this trouble in the fourth stomach from inflammations 

 caused by other things. The lamb or sheep does not seem ill in itself, 

 and gives one the idea that if only the purging could be arrested 

 the animal would be well. The writer does not expect the novice 

 to understand this differentiation, but the man familiar with sheep 

 will appreciate the distinction, and it may assist in diagnosis. 

 Diagnosis is indeed not difficult if one makes a constant practice 

 of examining the dung. Naked eye observation should not be 

 sufficient, as the parasites are often infinitely small and a magnifying 

 glass or pocket lens will demonstrate the presence of thousands, 

 where none could be seen without it. 



Treatment. It is most unsatisfactory we must admit that 

 no really successful treatment has been discovered. There are 

 many drugs which will destroy the worms outside the body, but 

 they fail inside the host, because the presence of the parasites causes 



