i'HE DISEASES OF SHEEP. 28'7 



sometimes been as long perhaps as two weeks 

 thereafter) and finding there some favorite 

 germ has set up there the great and rapid 

 destruction of live tissue that is seen. Doubt- 

 less the disease is caused by the multiplication 

 of microbes coming from an introduced germ, 

 equally doubtless the conditions must be right 

 for the development of the germ. And the 

 right conditions seem to be the derangement 

 of the blood by too much food, especially by 

 feeding with corn. 



A learned veterinarian once related to the 

 writer that he had never dissected the udder of 

 a cow without finding therein, along with the 

 milk ducts, germs of bacteria that he consid- 

 ered the agents that cause bovine garget. How 

 the germ got there he could not tell. When 

 conditions were right for the germ it multiplied 

 and did its work of destruction. When con- 

 ditions were right for the cow it remained, 

 waiting. This is probably the explanation also 

 in the case of the ewe. 



Com feeding of milking ewes has apparently 

 induced most of the cases of malignant garget 

 that have come under the writer's observation. 

 Indeed he has seen a fine ewe, proud of her two 

 beautiful lambs, with an udder like a Jersey 

 cow, break into the lot of the feeding lambs and 

 gorge herself with com, and predicted at once 

 that she would come down with garget, and 

 has seen his sombre prediction veri£ed, has had 

 the sad task of trying to find mothers for the 

 two worse than orphans and nursed the mother 

 for weeks till at last, ghost of her former self, 



