370 HOOF -EOT. 



water hot, after it was poured into the vat. And if the 

 disease was in its new and malignant stage, I might keep 

 every sheep half an hour or upwards in the hot liquor. I do 

 not aver that one application would cure all cases in that 

 stage, but I judge from my experience that it would he more 

 likely to do it than any other application I ever heard of. 



When the disease is in what I have termed the third 

 stage — when a decomposition of the tissues has taken place 

 and a powerful escharotic is requisite to remove the dead 

 structures and their ulcerous accompaniments — there is, as 

 Mr. Youatt observes, no application comparable with chloride 

 or buytr of antimony. I have used nitric, sulphuric and 

 muriatic acid ; and instead of finding, with Mr. Spooner, that 

 it " is of little consequence which caustic is employed, pro- 

 vided it is of sufficient strength,"* I have found all the 

 latter to possess too much " strength " — or, at least, to be too 

 deeply corrosive when applied to flesh ; while the butyr of 

 antimony combines so readily with the fluids in the parts, that 

 it very soon loses its caustic effects. It therefore, to a very 

 considerable degree, possesses the admirable property of 

 nitrate of silver (too expensive a material to be used in hoof- 

 rot) of acting purely as a superficial caustic, so that an eschar 

 is formed protecting the parts beneath, and promoting a new 

 and healthy action. I much prefer muriatic acid to either 

 nitric or siflphuric acid, when bntp" of antimony is not to be 

 obtained. 



I have no space to discuss the questions whether hoof- rot 

 is contagious — and whether it also originates Avithout 

 contagion. On the first point I will only say that I should 

 esteem that man out of his senses who, after having very 

 extended opportunities for observing its origin and for tracing 

 its history in any particular region, should doubt its direct, 

 decided and (after sufficient exposure of healthy animals to its 

 virus,f) uniform contagiousness. Whether it is generated by 



occasionally, in keeping them all on their feet. Lying down or falling down in the 

 water would produce no catastrophe: it would not harm the sheep a particle — hut it 

 would dye it a light blue, and the liquor would be unneceBsarily wasted. 



* Spooner on Sheep, p. 441. 



t I.am inclined to beheve that it is not communicated by effluvium — by infection — 

 or even necessarily by contact between diseased and undiseased animals. I think it 

 is chiefly, if not entirely communicated by a species of inoculation, if I may so term 

 it — by the virus of a diseased foot being brought in contact with the inner portion of 

 an undiseased foot. If this is a correct hypothesis, it would seem to follow that the 

 malady would not be very likely to be communicated in all its stages ; and that the 

 rapidity of its transmission at all periods would depend somewhat upon chance. 

 Sheep take it far most rapidly by being turned into pastures where diseased sheep 

 have been some time running, and where a thousand blades of grass and other sub- 

 stances liable to come in conUct with the inner portion of the foot, are charged with 

 a quantity of the vims. 



