SHEEP FROM CUMBERLAND DISEASE OR SPLENIC FEVER. 49 



ment of the infection, and it is also certain that the conditions 

 under which sheep are kept in Australia are very favourable to 

 " exhaustion." In the immense paddocks where they are left to 

 their own devices in flocks of 10,000 or 20,000, and where the 

 noise caused by the falling of a tree is sufficient to send them 

 panic-stricken from one end of the enclosure to the other, they 

 are certainly more liable to exhaustion than in the small fields 

 common to European agriculture, where they are limited in num- 

 bers and nearly always watched. 



There is another reason which may be looked upon as explain- 

 ing in some degree the great mortality in Australia. Here the 

 dangerous season is much longer than in Europe, so that the 

 animals have to struggle against the infection during a far more 

 extended period than in France, for example, and the chances of 

 infection are thus greatly increased. 



A third reason, and the one which could perhaps be easily 

 avoided by the squatter if its importance was well understood, is 

 the neglect which exists in the manner of disposing of the bodies 

 of animals which have died from the disease. In France when 

 an animal succumbs there is nearly always some person who takes 

 away the body and carries it to an establishment where he gets 

 paid for his trouble, and where the sheep is converted into tallow. 

 In places situated at a distance from such manufactories there 

 are veritable cemeteries for sheep, which are inclosed with fences 

 in order that other animals may not be depastured thereon. Here, 

 unfortunately, when an animal dies, it remains on the same spot 

 and is torn to pieces by birds of prey and dingoes, and thus the 

 contagion is spread. This has moreover been going on for many 

 years past, so that it can be said that the soil is in some places 

 literally saturated with microbes, and the danger of contagion is 

 thus immensely increased. 



It is not possible to compel the squatters to burnthe bodies. 

 Many fear, and with some show of reason, that^by doing so they 

 might start bush-fires ; but if they properly understood how 

 dangerous it is to other stock that dead animals should be left 



D— June 3, 1891. 



