500 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



The few cases I have seen have been of a sub-acute character, and would 

 not bear treatment so decidedly and J think dangerously antiphlogistic. 

 Mr. Youatt remarks : 



" Depletion may be of inestimable value during the continuance — the short continuance— 

 of the febrile state ; but excitation like this will soon be followed by corresponding ex- 

 haustion, and then the bleeding and the pui-ging would be murderous expedients, and gentian, 

 ginger, and the spirit of nitrous ether will afford the only hope of cure." 



Bronchitis. — It would be difficult to suppose that where sheep are sub- 

 ject to pneumonia they would not also be subject to bronchitis — which is 

 an inflammation of the mucous membrane which lines the bronchial tubes 

 — the air-passes of the lungs, I have seen no cases, however, which I 

 have been able to identify as bronchitis, and have examined no subjects, 

 after death, which exhibited its characteristic lesions. Its symptoms are 

 those of an ordinary cold, but attended with more fever and a tenderness 

 of the throat and belly when pressed upon. 



Treatment. — Administer salt in doses from 1^ to 2 oz., with 6 or 8 oz. 

 of lime-water, given in some other part of the day. This is Mr. Youatt's 

 prescription. 



Catarrh. — Catarrh is an inflammation of the mucous membrane which 

 lines the nasal passages — and it sometimes extends to the larynx and pha- 

 rynx. In the first instance — where the lining of the nasal passages is 

 alone and not very violently affected — it is merely accompanied by an in- 

 creased discharge of mucus, and is rarely attended with much danger. In 

 this form it is usually termed snnfles, and high-bred English mutton sheep, 

 in this country, are apt to manifest more or less of it, after every sudden 

 change of weather. When the inflammation extends to the mucous lining 

 of the larynx and pharynx, some degree of fever usually supervenes, ac- 

 companied by cough, and some loss of appetite. At this point the Eng- 

 lish veterinarians usually recommend bleeding and purging. Catarrh rarely 

 attacks the American fine-wooled sheep with sufficient violence in summer, 

 to require the exhibition of remedies. I early found that depletion, in 

 catarrh, in our severe winter months, rapidly produced that fatal prostra- 

 tion, from which it is next to impossible to recover the sheep — entirely im- 

 possible, without bestowing an amount of time and care on it, costing far 

 more than the price of any ordinary sheep. 



The best course is \,o prevent the disease, by judicious precautions. With 

 that amount of attention which every prudent flock-master should bestow 

 on his sheep, the hardy American Merino is little subject to it. Good, 

 comfortable, but ■well-ventilated shelters, constantly accessible to the sheep 

 in winter, with a sufficiency of food regularly administered, is usually a 

 sufficient safeguard ; and after some years of experience, during which I 

 have tried a variety of experiments on this disease, I resort to no othei 

 remedies — in other words, I do nothing ioY those occasional cases of ordina- 

 2'y catarrh which arise in my flock, and they never prove fatal. 



Malignant Epizootic Catarrh. — Essentially differing from the pre- 

 ceding- in type and virulence is an epidemic, or, more properly speaking, 

 an epizootic, malady, which as often as once in eight or ten years sweeps 

 over extended sections of the Northern States, destroying more sheep than 

 all the other disenses put together. It usually makes its appearance in win- 

 ters characterized by rapid and violent changes of temperature. The 

 Northern farmers speak of these as the " bad winters " for sheep — fre- 

 quently without assigning any name to the malady. Others term the lat- 



(940) 



