DISEASES OF SHEEP. 43 



days, produce no fever, are not contagious and of no dan- 

 gerous consequences. 



The sheep pox is one of the most destructive diseases, 

 destroying all kinds of animals alike. The devastation 

 caused by this disease is indeed enormous. It has been 

 stated that out of eight millions of sheep, one hundred and 

 fifty thousand have been destroyed by it in one year in 

 Hungary ; and it is officially reported that the loss amongst 

 herds in Austria (which amounted in the aggregate to 

 about sixteen millions of sheep) has not been less than four 

 hundred thousand sheep per annum. This official report 

 was made at a time when vaccination for sheep pox had 

 not yet been introduced. We are therefore enabled to form 

 an idea of the dangerous consequences of such a disease. 

 It has been calculated that the average loss caused by 

 sheep pox amounts to from eight to ten per cent. This 

 calculation, however, is not always to be relied upon. I 

 have observed average losses of about six or eight per cent. 

 under favorable circumstances, and losses varying from 

 twenty to thirty and even from forty to sixty per cent., 

 according to the vehemence of the disease or the effect of 

 local and other influences. Last year I observed a case in 

 England, in which, out of a herd of three hundred sheep, 

 ninety-nine were destroyed by sheep pox, amounting to 

 nearly thirty-three per cent. 



We have now to consider the effect of sheep pox upon 

 the animal itself, and in this we should be guided by 

 the following rules, founded upon experience : The num- 

 ber of pox indicates the degree of danger. The less the 

 number, the less the danger, and with the increase of their 

 number the danger increases, because in the latter case the 

 pox flow together and form the so-called flattened pox. 

 When there are only a few pox and their progress is regu- 

 lar, when such pox are separated from each other, when 



