Braxy, Bradsot, Gastro-mycosis Ovis. 557 



Causes. I^ike louping-ill this affection is associated with incle- 

 ment seasons, exposed localities, and insufficient or indigestible 

 food, but it differs in being an affection of autumn and winter 

 rather than spring. It is rarely seen in summer. At a time 

 when it was looked upon as an acute indigestion, its coincidence 

 with hard frost or deep snow, was explained on the basis that the 

 victim had been driven to eat dry, fibrous, indigestible grasses, 

 brakens and heather. W. Williams who formerly identified the 

 disease with anthrax, seemed to go back to this theory of indi- 

 gestion. Though that is no longer tenable, yet it would be wrong- 

 to ignore the effect of inclement weather and unwholesome food 

 in predisposing the animal system, and robbing it of the healthy 

 tone which would otherwise have successfully resisted the infec- 

 tion in many cases. The occurrence of deaths after frosty morn- 

 ings more than during mild weather, suggests at once the chill 

 effected in the animal, the chilling of the paunch by the frosted 

 grass eaten producing a subsequent congestive reaction, and the 

 known facility with which frozen vegetables undergo rapid fer- 

 mentation. 



Cowan and Borthwick, (Transactions of Highland Society 

 1863) agree that the disease is especially prevalent when -the 

 land has been overstocked in summer, or when there has been a 

 drought which withered up the pastures, and later a free growth 

 of green herbage from the autumn rains. This they attribute to 

 the " foul and unwholesome " character of the autumn growth, 

 but it suggests no less the low condition of the sheep on the over- 

 stocked lands and the soft, aqueous character of the herbage 

 grown rapidly in a comparatively cold season. Cowan quotes 

 cases in which the lambs, weaned early and put in a separate 

 pasture (hogg hirsel), suffered a mortality of 50 per cent., while 

 in later years when allowed to remain with the ewes until winter, 

 the deaths were reduced to 10 or 15 per cent. Here the more 

 rugged health and vigor were manifestly strong prophylactic 

 factors. 



Both Cowan and Borthwick incriminate the withered heather 

 and the dry, fibrous ( ' ' tathy ' ' ) and innutritious tufts of grass 

 which make up a large proportion of many hill pastures in 

 autumn and winter. 



Cowan strongly condemns heavy smearing with tar, which he 

 believes to encrease the mortality, by lowering the general tone of 



