296 



Diseases of Sheep. 



frequent with lambs than with adults ; indeed it very rarely occurs 

 except in lambs. It consists of an accumulation of fluid in the 

 ventricles, or between the membranes that envelop the brain. 

 It is perhaps hereditary, and is most generally caused by poverty of 

 blood, or, in other words, general debility in the ewe, arising from 

 insufficient feeding. The symptoms are dulness, want of appe- 

 tite, enlargement or, rather, distension of the skull, and a heavy 

 languid appearance of the eye, which sometimes projects unna- 

 turally. It rarely admits of cure, unless by the natural supply of 

 abundant milk from the mother, or from a foster-mother, with the 

 administration of aperient and tonic medicines. The lamb gene- 

 rally dies from weakness. My principal motive for describing the 

 complaint is to caution the farmer against breeding again from 

 the mother. 



TuRNsicK, or Goggles, is sometimes termed by shepherds 

 the Giddy, or the Dunt.* This is also a complaint of the head, 

 but affecting sheep more than lambs. It is essentially different 

 from the last disorder in its symptoms as well as its cause. It 

 usually appears when the sheep is about attaining its first year, 

 though it is by no means confined to that age. It proceeds from 

 the presence of hydatids in the brain. They are lodged in a 



* Vancouver, in his Survey of Devonshire, thus describes the Goggles in 

 Sheep : — 



" The symptoms are more discoverable in the morning, when the animal 

 first rises from the p:round, by an evident weakness and difficulty in raising 

 its hind quarters. This complaint continues for some time, getting worse 

 and worse, until the animal can move its hind parts no longer ; it then lies 

 prostrate on the earth, but looking constantly backwards, and making con- 

 tinual efforts to bite and nab the wool towards the loins, and where there is 

 evidently seated a most excruciating pain. In this condition the animal 

 very soon expires. No remedy or means of prevention have as yet been 

 suggested to avert this deplorable malady." 



Should I have been mistaken in classing Goggles and Turnsick under one 

 head, I think the term " Goggles" must be misapplied, and those provincial 

 terms are very confounding. What Vancouver has described appears to 

 me to be a paralytic affection. I recollect the complaint, but never heard 

 it named the " Goggles," the term " Shrew-croft" being commonly used to 

 designate the disease. — The Author. 



I have seen a great deal of this affection in our own neighbourhood, 

 and have had my own flock seized with it several times. The easiest and 

 most effectual way not only to cure it, but to prevent its progress, is to take 

 some common tar and place it between the eyes of all the sheep, spreading 

 it down to the nose, and it is astonishing to find how soon they recover ; nor 

 will any of the other sheep, having the tar applied in this manner, be liable 

 to have the complaint. — W illiam Greaves. 



[This and the other notes of Mr. Greaves of Bakewell, (a Derbyshire 

 tenant of his Grace the Duke of Rutland), who has had considerable expe- 

 rience in the diseases of horses and cattle, and paid much personal attention 

 to the management of his own stock, are communicated by his Grace the 

 Duke^of Richmond and the Marquess of Downshire.") 



