313 LOCAL NON-CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 



-while certain experiments have been carried out by different 

 noted veterinarians to that end, they have only been attended 

 with success in very few instances, and then under such circum- 

 stances that it is reasonable to believe that the methods employed 

 vs^ould have caused the condition without the introduction of the 

 discharge from affected feet. 



Foot-rot is the cause of very severe monetary losses to 

 flock-owners, not that it is liable to terminate fatally, but that the 

 irritation and fever it produces so interfere with the animal's 

 well-being as to make it unthrifty, causing it to lose flesh, and 

 thereby inflicting serious injury on its owner. The fact that 

 a large number of animals in a flock often become affected 

 simultaneously, has led many sheep-owners and also veterinarians 

 to believe it to be a contagious affection. The question of its 

 contagiousness has been affirmatively answered by many noted 

 European authorities, among whom may be mentioned Gohier, 

 Gasparin, Girard, Eeynal, Mr. George Fleming and many others, 

 and as directly denied by such eminent authorities as the late 

 Prof. Dick of Edinburgh, and Profs. Brown and Williams. The 

 late Mr. Eead of Crediton, Eng., after making exhaustive in- 

 Testigations on the subject, concluded against its contagious char- 

 acter, and stated that it was caused from the soil not being 

 adapted to graze sheep over, and that the mere moving of infected 

 sheep to healthy land Avas sufficient in itself to perfect a cure. 



Before considering the causes of this disease it may be as 

 well to consider briefly the anatomy of the foot, a knowledge of 

 which will materially assist in determining the cause of the 

 trouble. The hoof of the sheep is composed of two separate 

 digits, each enclosed in a horny box or framework, the passage 

 between the digits being termed the cleft. "We find under the 

 horn or wall of the foot a membrane termed the subcorncus 

 membrane, which is composed of a number of leaf-like bands 



