272 DISEASES OF SHEEP. .; 



sheep to thrive well under its progress to a certain stage, when 

 they suddenly fall off, and the disease pursues the same course witn 

 the rest. Some jrraziers know this crisis of declension, as it haa 

 been called, and kill their sheep for market at the immediate nick 

 of time with no loss. In these cases no signs of the disease are 

 to be traced by ordinary inspectors, but the existence of the flukes, 

 and still more a certain state of liver and of its secretions, are 

 characteristic marks to the wary and experienced. 



229. The treatment of rot is seldom successful unless when it is 

 early commenced, or when of a mild nature ; a total change of 

 food is the first indication, and that to a dry wholesome kind : all 

 the farina are good, as the meals of wheat, barley, oats, peas, 

 beans, &-c. Carrots have done good mixed with these ; broom, 

 burnet, elder, and mellilot, as diuretics, have also been recom- 

 mended i but it is necessary to observe, that there is seldom any 

 ventral effusion but in the latter stages of the complaint. As long 

 as the liver is not wliolly disorganized, the cure may be hoped by 

 a simple removal of tlie cause, which has been shown to be a va- 

 riable temperature, with excessive moisture of pasturage which 

 may also be aided by such remedies as assist the action of the 

 biliary system ; salt acts in this way, and thus salt mashes are good ; 

 salt may also be given in the water. Salt appears the principal 

 ingredient in Flesh's patent restorative for sheep, for it states it 

 to be composed of turpentine, sal ammoniac, turmeric, quicksil- 

 ver, brimstone, salt opium, alkanet root, bark, antimony, camphor, 

 and distilled water ; but in this medley none of the articles can be 

 in sufficient quantity to prove useful, but the salt. In the more 

 advanced stages of the •lisease, when the liver has become mate- 

 rially affected, it is prudent to rub the bellies of each sheep with 

 lialf a drachm of mercurial ointment every other day for a week ; 

 give also the following, every morning ; watery tincture of aloes, 

 half an ounce ; decoction of willow bark, four ounces ; nitric acid, 

 twenty-five drops. 



230. The pelt rot, hunger rot, or naJced disease, is a variety ol 

 the former, but with this difference, that whereas the liver in the 

 hydroptic rot, is principally affected ; in this the whole of the 

 chylopoietic viscera are injured ; the mesenteric glands are al- 

 ways swollen and obstructed, and from thence arises the emacia- 

 tion and unhealthy state of all the secretions, by which the rot 

 oecomes incapable of receiving nutrunent, and falls oflf leaving 

 the body bare, and in the last stages the teeth and horns also 

 loosen. Indifferent, unhealthy keeping, is a very common cause of 



