SHEEP. 263 



DYSENTERY. 



The diarrhoea, or scours, continuing from neglect or 

 bad treatment, or being very severe, degenerates into 

 dysentery, and then the disease assumes a more serious 

 form. A considerable discharge of mucus takes place, 

 and blood occasionally. This disease is attended with 

 severe griping in the bowels, and sometimes with inflam- 

 mation in the intestines generally. 



Remedy. Give small doses of physic, such as castor- 

 oil or salts, for a few days, to clear the bowels of impu- 

 rities, before giving astringents. The remedies recom- 

 mended for scours will generally prove effectual in this 

 disorder. If not, give, once or twice a day, in lard or 

 oil, an even table-spoonful of fresh charcoal, reduced to 

 an impalpable powder. This is a powerful remedy, and 

 the lard or oil tends to prevent checking the discharge 

 too soon. [See page 205.] 



ROT. 



Cause. On this subject there are various opinions. 

 Some suppose that the numerous fluke worms which 

 are found in the livers and gall-bladders of sheep dying 

 with this disease, are produced from eggs that have 

 been taken into the stomach with the grass on which the 

 sheep have been feeding ; while others think that they 

 are the effect, not the cause, of disease — that these ani- 

 malcules are engendered by the putrid contents of the 

 stomach, caused by the watery and acid properties of 

 food taken by sheep while feeding on aquatic plants, 

 indigenous to wet pastures. This is the opinion of the 

 celebrated shepherd and poet, William Hogg, who had 

 an experience of more than half a century. He thinks 

 it may also be caused or promoted by bad management, 

 or some adventitious circumstances in the animal's life^ 

 as a sea-voyage, &c. 



On low lands, the soft, washy sustenance imparts 

 no consistence of vigor to the muscular and essential 

 parts of the body, the viscera are increased; a bad 



