TREATMENT AND PREVENTION OF STURDY. 



225 



I 



will, by feeding them on green succulent provision ; and 

 it is well known that this form of sturdy prevails among 

 sheep chiefly in marshy places, as the fens of Lincoln- 

 shire. 



Water in the head is generally induced, as first 

 pointed out by the Ettrick Shepherd, in the Farmer^s 

 Magazine for 1812, by the back of the animal being 

 chilled, as is evident from the following facts : — 



"1. It is always most general after a windy and 

 sleety winter. 



" 2. It is always most destructive on farms that are 

 ill-sheltered, and on which the sheep are most exposed 

 to those blasts and showers. 



'* 3. It preys only on sheep rising their first year, 

 the wool of which separates above, leaving the back 

 quite exposed to the wet and cold. 



" 4. If a piece of cloth or hide is sewed to the wool, 

 so as to cover the back, such a sheep will not be 

 affected with the disease." 



Bratting is therefore the best preventive, and it is 

 as cheap as it is effectual. One pair of old blankets, 

 worth only some four or five shillings, will furnish 

 coverings for forty hogs, and if laid careful!}' aside in 

 spring, they will continue serviceable for two or three 

 years. An operation can avail nothing — slaughtering 

 he sheep is therefore the only expedient. 



When the existence of a hydatid near the surface 

 of the brain is denoted by the skull yielding, at some 

 particular spot, to the firm pressure of the thumb, its 

 extraction must be set about in the manner described 

 in paragraph (118), where I have also given my obieo- 

 tions to the common modes of operating. 



