DIARRHCEA, OR SCOURS. 357 



from costiveness, by being deprived wholly of green food. 

 The disease is unknown in Great Britain, where succulent 

 provender is so bountifully fed. 



Treatment. — Two table-spoonfuls of castor oil, or one 

 ounce of Epsom salts, will be effectual. A small quantity 

 of hog's lard has also been used with success. A neighbor 

 administers a large quid of tobacco ; and he recently in- 

 formed the writer that he had never lost a sheep by the 

 stretches after administering this nauseous potion. 



Preventive. — Give the flock green food once a week or 

 oftener — such as apples, potatoes, or turnips. Pine or hem- 

 lock boughs are also excellent. 



DIARRHCEA, OR SCOURS. 



This being so common and fatal a disease with the junior 

 portions of the flock, in our own country, requires an ex- 

 tended notice. The following are Mr. Youatt's remarks, 

 and mode of treatment : — 



" If the affections of the external coats of the intestines 

 do not frequently occur, inflammation of the inner coat or 

 mucous membrane is the very pest of sheep. When it is 

 confined principally to the mucous membrane of the small 

 intestines, and is not attended by much fever, it is termed 

 diarrhoea ; when there is inflammation of the large intestines, 

 attended by fever, and considerable discharge of mucus, 

 and occasionally of blood, it is dysentery. These diseases 

 are seldom perfectly separate, and diarrhoea is too apt to de- 

 generate into dysentery. The diarrhoea of lambs is a dread- 

 fully fatal disease. If they are incautiously exposed to the 

 cold, or the mother's milk is not good, or if they are suckled 

 by a foster-mother that had yeaned too long before, a violent 

 purging will suddenly come on, and destroy them in less than 

 twenty-four hours. 



" When the lamb begins to crop the grass at his mother's 

 side he is liable to occasional disturbance of the bowels ; 

 but as he gains str«».ngth, the danger attendant on the disease 

 diminishes. At weaning-time care must sometimes be taken 

 of him. Let not, however, the farmer be in haste to stop 

 every little looseness of the bowels. It is in these young 

 animals the almost necessary accompaniment or consequence 

 of every change of diet, and almost of situation ; and it is 

 frequently a sanative process ; but if it continues longer than 

 twenty-four hours — if it is attended with pain — if much mu- 



