I02 Veterinary Medicine. 



finer wool, epidermis and horn of the Merino, explain a some- 

 what lessened resistance to the entrance of the microbe, but 

 there is perhaps a still stronger invitation in the much more 

 elaborate development of the sebaceous glands, in the fine wooled 

 sheep, which affords a free passage for the bacillus not through 

 the skin alone, but through the soft horny pads of the heels as 

 well. Even in America the Merino secured a bad preeminence 

 through the spread of foot-rot in the new flocks, developed in 

 Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and especially Iowa. The 

 flocks developed on the prairies were largely Merinos, because 

 being far from markets, and without railroad communication, 

 the fleece which would bring the highest price per lb. was 

 naturally sought after. Moreover it was found that the fine 

 wools could be better cared for in large flocks, than the long and 

 middle wools. And thus in every way the former seemed pre- 

 ferable, the cost being less and the returns greater. But where- 

 ever the flocks encreased, scab and foot-rot encreased still more, 

 and as the flocks followed each other on the unfenced prairie and 

 everything favored infection, the golden dreams of the flock 

 masters gave place to visions of ruin. It soon came to be looked 

 on as a public duty to stop and kill any lame or scabby sheep 

 that might be met with. 



Causes. The contagion was experimentally demonstrated as 

 early as 1823 by Favre, who took the matter from diseased feet 

 and moistened the skin between the hoofs of healthy sheep caus- 

 ing the disease in 21 out of 32 sheep treated. The uniform ex- 

 perience of the spread of the disease slowly in a flock in which 

 a sheep affected with foot-rot had been placed, had long before es- 

 tablished the fact. The complete demonstration came with the 

 isolation, by I/ceffler, Bang and others of the microbe from the 

 many which make up the complex infection on the ulcerating 

 sores, and the successful inoculation of the pure cultures. Moh- 

 ler and Washburn washed thoroughly the foot of a healthy sheep, 

 then sterilized it by a 5% solution of carbolic acid, then washed 

 this off with sterilized water, inoculated it from the foot of a 

 diseased sheep, and bound it up in rolls of sterile cotton covered 

 with a close linen wrapper. The liquid drawn from the starting 

 inflammation in the inoculated foot is injected subcutem into a 

 rabbit, which it kills in four to seven days. The inoculation of 



