LOCAL NON-CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 317 



iire diseased. The affected sheep lie down frequently; fall away 

 ill flesh, becoming eyesores to their owners. In extreme cases 

 the claws are shed and the animal is liable to succumb to the dis- 

 ease from the pain and inability to procure food. In the summer 

 season the odor from the affected feet appears to act as an attrac- 

 tion to the fly; the sores become infected with maggots, produc- 

 ing a most deplorable condition. In a prize essay by Hogg, the 

 Ettrick shepherd, we find the following: 



"On examining the foot in the first stage of the disease, the 

 coronary edge, while no external injury can be traced, is some- 

 times found a little swollen and inflamed; at other times the 

 hoof is eroded, but whether it be shattered or entire, an intense 

 heat is always perceptible in the feet, with a strong pulsation in 

 the arteries where they are inserted in the coronary edges of the 

 hoof, and, however sound the hoof may appear externally, the 

 connection between it and the interior of the foot is always dis- 

 solved, though the separation is not evident until the hoof is 

 pared away. A peculiar smell is perceptible, especially in the 

 advanced stages or when the ulcerous part is newly opened, yet 

 even in the worst cases a large quantity of ichor is never dis- 

 charged, there being little more than will wet the finger and that 

 only when pressed out." 



This extract from Mr. Hogg's essay places the first symp- 

 toms of this disease very plainly before the reader, and it only 

 remains to describe the differences between foot-rot and a disease 

 which it, to a certain extent, simulates and for which it has been 

 mistaken namely, aphthous fever. (Foot and mouth disease.) 



foot-rot in its primary Stages. 



Is not associated with constitutional fever. The appetite 

 remains good and the milk-supply of ewes suckling lambs is not 

 materially diminished, hardly at all in the first stage of the 

 disease. 



