314 THE DISfclASES AND DI>OL{DERS OF THE OX. 



slaughtered, and the pens, sheds, and so forth thoroughly 

 disinfected, before any fresh sheep could safely be allowed to 

 occupy them. 



Professor Simonds suggested that veterinary surgeons should 

 be appointed as inspectors at every port where sheep are landed, 

 to examine the animals before they are removed from the ships. 

 If any should be found to be affected with variola, they should be 

 immediately slaughtered. Moreover, all the sound sheep which 

 had been thus exposed to the contagion during the passage 

 should be sent to the meat markets, the carcases of the diseased 

 being buried and their skins burnt, the loss being borne by the 

 importers. A market should also be set apart for the sale of 

 foreign sheep and cattle, and be holden weekly at each place of 

 importation. To these markets all those animals which had 

 passed the inspectors should be sent, and all the sheep which 

 should arrive in the intervals between market days, and those 

 which were unsold, should be specially located, so as to prevent 

 them from being mingled with English sheep. Purchasers 

 should be enjoined to have the sheep, bought by them, killed 

 without delay, or, at any rate, kept stringently isolated for a 

 period of three weeks, during which time they should be examined, 

 and if they were found to be diseased, the fact should be at once 

 notified to the authorities. 



In regard to the breaking out of sheep-pox in England, we 

 have first to say that on October Ist, 1847, imformation was 

 sent by the Government to the Lord Mayor concerning the 

 measures which had been determined upon. On the next 

 market day — October 4, 1847 — twenty infected sheep were taken 

 into the possession of the police-officers of Smithfield. At first 

 the vigilance of the city magistrates and of their officers did not 

 entirely repress the slaughtering of infected sheep in the country 

 and the sending of their carcases to London ; but in the course 

 of a few weeks this practice, as well as the sending up of living 

 sheep afflicted with the disease, was almost entirely stopped. 



Now, in reference to the characters of the malady itself, sheep- 

 pox, like human small-pox, is very infectious and contagious, 

 and both diseases are characterised by a particular kind of 

 acute inflammation of the skin and mucous membranes of the 

 entire body, coupled with fever, and to be very similar to each 

 other. So liable is sheep-pox to spread, that it is highly 



