DISEASES OP SHEEP. 29 



and number. The affected skin is in the beginning of a red 

 color, which changes very soon into a purjale or bluish-red ; 

 the skin swells, and upon different places small bubbles, 

 filled with a watery fluid, appear. This erysipelatous form 

 of blood disease is called St. Anthony's Fire. The progress 

 of the disease is a little slow, but nevertheless of a dan- 

 gerous character; so that death in most cases occurs in 

 from twelve to twenty-f'^ur hours, and in some cases even in 

 a shorter time or suddenly. It is scarcely necessary to re- 

 mark that not all the symptoms abave alluded to are shown 

 in every case of this disease ; sometimes the disease causes 

 such a rapid destruction that only a few of the described 

 signs are allowed to mature. " Blood disease" is, however, 

 easily detected, especially when several animals are affected 

 with the same, either at the same time or one shortly after 

 the other. There is scarcely any other disease which can 

 be confounded with this ; there are certain indications of 

 wind-dropsy or swelling which show somewhat of a simi- 

 larity to the symptoms of blood disease, which may possibly 

 be mistaken ; but in such cases all doubts in regard to the 

 true cause can easily be removed by dissection, and also by 

 other important diversities of both diseases hereafter to be 

 described. The carcass of a sheep which died of blood 

 disease putrefies in an uncommonly short time, the belly ex- 

 tending largely, a cadaverous smell becoming perceptible ; 

 and from mouth, nose and anus flows a thin, very dark- 

 colored blood. 



In many cases the skin is found to be of a bluish-red 

 color, especially under the throat and upon the breast. The 

 stripped skin shows upon different places accumulations of 

 blackish-red blood, and the blood of the veins is not con- 

 gealed, but liquid, and has the color of tar ; the flesh is 

 shriveled, of a bluish-red color and mellow. The abdominal 

 cavity and intestines are filled with fetid air, which swells 



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