BLOOD DISEASES. 283 



Blood Diseases. 



Red ^ater. Sanguineous Hscites. 



This disease is frequently seen occurring in lambs, in those 

 still sucking, as well as those already \f eaned. It also occurs in 

 adult sheep. It is a very fatal affection, running a rapid course, 

 death frequently taking place in six hours or less, after the first 

 symptoms have been manifested. 



The cause of this condition appears to be in the nature of 

 the food, — turnips and other foods containing an excess of water, 

 and a lack of flesh and fat-forming materials, are especially re- 

 sponsible for this disease. Spooner states: "It usually attacks 

 both sheep and lambs when feeding on turnips, and particularly 

 when there is a hoar-frost, and the sheep are folded on them 

 during the night." It is a condition which all herbivora appear to 

 be liable to, even the deer and other of the wild ruminants when 

 kept in captivity, are liable to contract the disease. The writer 

 was so fortunate as to be present at a post mortem on a young 

 moose at the Park Zoo, Buffalo, 'N. Y., which evidenced every 

 symptom of this interesting and obscure complaint. This animal 

 had been running in a paddock containing succulent grasses, 

 notably clover, which in the mornings would be heavily coated 

 with dew; that, and the fact, perhaps, that the food supplied 

 lacked some essential characteristic contained in the material 

 eaten by the moose when roving wild, was evidently, partly, if 

 not wholly, responsible for its death. 



Symptoms. 



The first noticeable symptoms will be a refusal to feed on 

 the part of the sheep; rumination is suspended; the animal ap- 

 pears dull; the eyes have a staring look; the breathing is labored; 

 belly enlarged; the bowels may be very loose, with foetid dis- 

 charges, or the subject may be constipated. Swellings will fre- 



