360 HOOF - EOT. 



its eggs in the ulcer, and maggots appear almost before — 

 sometimes actually before — there are any cavities formed, 

 into which they can penetrate. The early appearance of 

 maggots greatly accelerates the progress of disorganization 

 in the structures. 



The fore -feet are usually first attacked — sometimes both 

 of them simultaneously, but more generally only one of them. 

 The animal at first manifests but little constitutional dis- 

 turbance. It eats as is its wont. When the disease has 

 partly run its course in one foot, the other fore-foot is likely 

 to be attacked, and presently the hind ones. When a foot 

 becomes considerably disorganized, it is held up by the 

 animal. When another one reaches the same state, the 

 miserable sufferer seeks its food on its kneea ; and if forced to 

 rise and walk, its strange, hobbling gait betrays the intense 

 agony it endures on bringing its ulcerated feet in contact 

 with the ground. There is a bare spot on the under side of 

 the brisket of the size of the palm of a man's hand — but 

 perhaps a little longer — which looks red and inflamed. 

 There is a degree of general fever — and the appetite is dull. 

 The animal rapidly loses condition, but retains considerable 

 strength. No where else do sheep seem to me to exhibit such 

 tenacity of life. After the disappearance of the bottom of 

 the hoof, the maggot speedily closes the scene. Where the 

 rotten foot is brought in contact with the side in lying down, 

 the filthy, ulcerous matter adheres to and saturates the short 

 wool of the shorn sheep : and maggots also are either carried 

 there by the foot, or they are speedUy generated by the fly. 

 A black crust soon forms, and raises a little higher round the 

 spot. It is the decomposition of the surrounding structures — 

 wool, skin and muscle — and innumerable maggots are at 

 work below, burrowing into the living tissues, and eating up 

 the miserable animal alive. The black, festering mass rapidly 

 extends, and the cavities of the body wUl soon be penetrated, 

 if the poor sufferer is not sooner relieved of its tortures by 

 death. 



The offensive odor of the ulcerated feet, almost from the 

 beginning of the disease, is so peculiar that it is strictly 

 pathognomonic. I have always believed that I could by the 

 sense of smell alone, in the most absolute darkness, decide dn 

 the presence of hoof -rot with unerring certainty. And I had 

 about as lief trust my fingers as my eyes to establish the same 

 point, from the hour of the first attack, if no other disease of 

 the foot is present. But the heat, which invariably marks the 

 earliest presence of hoof-rot, might arise from any other 



