8 The Farmer's Veterinary Adviser. 



In many localities the disease appears to aU newly- 

 calved heifers on particular farms, in which case it would 

 be well to purify the bams by a thorough disinfection. 



SHEEP-POX. 



Though unknown in America, there is no improbability 

 of this disease reaching us, through importations of 

 sheep, hides or wool. Like small-pox of man, it is only 

 known as a contagious disease. The incubation or latent 

 period of the poison after it enters the system, is from 

 three to six days in summer, and from ten to twelve in 

 winter. Then there is loss of appetite, duUness, dropping 

 behind the flock, and stiffness of the hind parts. This is 

 followed by trembling, increased temperature, very mani- 

 fest on the bare and delicate parts of the skin on which 

 the eruption usually takes place, loss of appetite and 

 rumination, costiveness, red, weeping eyes, a discharge 

 from the nose, and the appearance of red patches inside 

 the limbs and along the abdomen. Soon minute red 

 points appear and increase to papules with a firm base, 

 extending into the deeper parts of the skin. These are 

 flat on the summit, (rarely pointed or indented), and be- 

 come pale or clear in the centre, from the effusion of liq- 

 uid beneath the scurf skin, with a red margia. With the 

 appearance of the eruption, the fever moderates, but in- 

 creases again in three or four days with the development 

 and irritability of the vesicles. These may remain indi- 

 vidually distinct (discrete) in which case the attack is mUd, 

 or they may run together into extensive patches (conflu- 

 ent) and the result is hkely to be serious. The pocks wiU 

 even appear on the digestive or respiratory mucous mem- 

 brane. The eruption passes through the same course of 

 exudation, suppuration, drying and dropping off as in 

 cow-pox. The duration of the disease is three weeks or 

 a month. The mortahty in the milder forms may not 

 exceed seven per one hundred, in the more severe it 

 may destroy almost the whole flock. But the losses of 



