530 THE DISEASES AND DISORDERS OF THE OX. 



The disease is very well known to those who have to do with 

 sheep, and the losses are in some parts occasionally great, as, 

 for instance, in certain parts of Lincolnshire. It is in the 

 autumn or the beginning of winter, when the sheep are on the 

 turnip fields or are feeding on other very succulent food, that 

 redwater usually breaks out. Although on the preceding night all 

 the sheep of a flock were apparently well, the shepherd may 

 nevertheless find, when the morning dawns, one or more lying 

 down, almost in their usual posture, with their legs bent under 

 their bodies, and their heads inclined forward, but dead. Fre- 

 quently it may happen that a change of pasture, and especially 

 a change from a dry to a cold and wet one, and particularly if 

 there is much hoar frost, may bring on this disease ; for, when 

 such is the case, the belly comes into contact with the cold and 

 damp ground, whereby chilling and inflammation of the peri- 

 toneal coat of the intestines is produced, and a great deal of 

 fluid accumulates and becomes red and bloody as a result of the 

 rupture of the small vessels of the peritoneum. 



If after death an examination be made, the belly is found to 

 contain a variable amount of a sanguineous fluid, while the 

 peritoneum — especially the mesenteric and omental portions of 

 it — is seen to be much inflamed. This disease, then, in which 

 inflammation of the peritoneum is the marked characteristic, is 

 what we mean by redwater, and it must be most carefully dis- 

 tinguished from other diseases bearing the same appellation. 

 Certain disorders of both sheep and cattle, of which the leading 

 symptom is either the excretion of blood-coloured urine or the 

 presence of a sanguineous fluid in the abdominal cavity, distinct 

 from the disease above described, also sometimes go by the same 

 name. For example, the name redwater has been bestowed 

 upon a condition in which jaundice manifests itself, the urine 

 •also at the same time being of a port-wine colour, and the 

 animal showing anaemia in a marked degree, having a pulse of 

 one hundred and forty per minute, while the heart-sounds are 

 loud and the respirations quick. When suffering in this way, 

 an animal dies as a result of exhaustion, and after death the 

 tissues of the body may be seen to be pale and yellow, the blood 

 being scanty and the liver softened. Nutritious food should be 

 supplied, and both mineral and vegetable tonics may be adminis- 

 tered. Salts of iron seem to be especially advantageous, the 



