574 THE DISEASES AND DISORDERS OF THE OX. 



before. Mr. Goodacre, however, tried the effect of running one 

 ram with only ten ewes, and the result was that many of the ewes 

 had two lambs, and in all cases the lambs appeared to be un- 

 usually strong. Ewes are brought from Scotland, and about 

 three weeks afterwards those which are healthy are put with a 

 ram. 



It cannot be said that there is any difference in regard to the 

 liability to this disease between the two kinds of ewes, viz. those 

 which are imported and those which are home-bred ; but great 

 care should be taken to ensure that those from Scotland, coming 

 as they do from a hilly country, where in a half-wild state they 

 subsist on meagre diet, should be quite strong and healthy before 

 they are used for the purpose of breeding. The district in which 

 the disease broke out was a gently undulating grazing country, 

 with plenty of large trees, high hedge-rows, and coarse rank grass. 

 The soil was cold, heavy, wet, and clayey^ and at the time of 

 lambing the east winds were very cold and severe. 



Mr. Williams considers the disease to be due to the following 

 two causes : — In the first place, there can be no doubt that the 

 ewes must be injured by sudden exposure to rigorous conditions 

 without previously having been gradually acclimatised, and, in 

 consequence, they may give birth to lambs either suffering or on 

 the point of suffering from disease. Darwin has shown the 

 great susceptibility of the reproductive system, and especially of 

 that of female animals, to changed and abnormal conditions in 

 the environment. Even monstrosities may be artifically produced 

 in the offspring by exposing parents to certain extraordinary 

 conditions of life without any obvious abnormalities being pro- 

 duced in the parents themselves. Possibly there may be only 

 disturbed action of the kidneys in the mothers, but doubtless 

 this may be transmitted to the lambs in the exaggerated form of 

 actual and acute disease. 



In the second place Mr. Williams thinks — and no doubt he is 

 -right in so thinking — that one of the causes of the disease is the 

 fact of one ram being put with so many ewes. It appears to be 

 the fact that more than a single spermatozoon is, in the case of 

 the higher plants and animals, requisite to properly fertilise the 

 ovum. Newport has shown that when only a small number of 

 •spermatozoa are applied to the ova of batrachians they are only 

 jpartially impregnated, and the embryo is never developed. 



