632 SCABIES — SCAR — MANGE, 



justify their use. In case scab exists in a flock and the farmer wishes to 

 eradicate it, he cannot choose a dip which will bring about a more 

 thorough cure than will lime and sulphur (properly made and properly 

 used), although it will be perfectly possible for the farmer to find several 

 other dips which will, when properly used, be nearly or equally as effectual 

 as any lime-and-sulphur dip. There is no dip to which objections cannot 

 be raised. 



Arsenical Dips. 



There are both home-made arsenical dips and secret proprietary 

 arsenical dips. It is well to use special precautions with both, because 

 of the danger connected with them. One of the prominent manufac- 

 turers of dips, a firm which places on the market both a powder arseni- 

 cal dip and a liquid non-poisonous dip, recently summarised the evils of 

 arsenical dips in the following remarkable manner : 



" The drawbacks to the use of arsenic may be summed up somewhat 

 as follows : (a) Its danger as a deadly poison, (h) Its drying effect on 

 the wool, (c) Its weakening of the fibre of the wool in one particular 

 part near the skin, where it comes in contact with the tender wool roots 

 at the time of dipping, (d) Its not feeding the wool or stimulating the 

 growth, or increasing the weight of the fleece, as good oleaginous dips do. 

 (e) The danger arising from the sheep pasturing, after coming out of the 

 bath, where the wash may possibly have drip[)ed from the fleece, or 

 where showers of rain, after the dipping, have washed the dip out of the 

 fleece upon the pasture. (/') Its occasionally throwing sheep off their 

 feed for a few days after dipping, and so prejudicing the condition of the 

 sheep, id) Its frequent effect upon the skin of the sheep, causing exco- 

 riation, blistering, and hardness, which stiffen and injure the animal, 

 sometimes resulting in death." 



Although this manufacturer has gone further in his attack upon arsenic 

 than the United States Bureau oj Agriculture would have been inclined 

 to do, it must be remarked that when a manufacturer of such a dip 

 cannot speak more highly of the chief ingredient of his compound than 

 this one has done in the above quotations, his remarks tend to discredit 

 dips based upon that ingredient. Bruce, the Chief Inspector of Live Stock 

 for New South Wales, speaking of arsenical dips, says: "Arsenic and 

 arsenic and tobacco (with fresh runs) cured 9,284 and failed with 9,271." 

 It may be said, on the other hand, that arsenic really has excellent 

 scab-curing qualities ; it enters into the composition of a number of the 

 secret dipping powders, and forms the chief ingredient in one of the 

 oldest secret dips used. This particular dip has been given second place 

 (with some qualifications) among the officially recognised dips in South 

 Africa. 



