Diseases of Sheep. 



311 



It has often been remarked tliat, slow as has been the progress 

 of veterinary science generally, there is no branch of it Avhich seems 

 to have made such little advance as the treatment of the diseases 

 of sheep. There is perhaps no disorder of sheep which illus- 

 trates this more decidedly than rot : without pretending to dis- 

 cuss this point of pathology, I am however led by many considera- 

 tions to the conclusion that it may prove a curable disease. 



I lately received fi-om a very intelligent farmer at Sanderton^, in 

 Bucks, a communication of a fact that confirms my views as to 

 the possibility of cure. Eight years ago he purchased eight score 

 of sheep. After feeding the flock for a few days on turnips, 

 he found that they were all affected with the rot, and 130 

 died. The greater part of them were examined, and the liver in 

 every case Vvas found to be diseased. The other thirty, having 

 been taken off the turnips and fed on hay, recovered, and at the end 



sheep-rot-weed ; and if slieep are allowed to feed on this land, particularly 

 if in a hungry state, although the weed does not grow more than an inch or 

 two above the surface, and is of a nauseous taste, they will, in this state of 

 hunger, indiscriminately eat it up along with the grass, and it will I believe 

 more or less infect them with the rot. AVhen a hole is made in land of this 

 description so as to allow water to collect and stand in it, the surface of the 

 water will in 24 hours become covered with a scum, having the metallic lustre 

 of quicksilver tinged with red, and therefore probably of an injurious nature. 

 There is no doubt that dry land is by far the best for the health and well- 

 being of the sheep, but I know from experience that they are not rotted by 

 feeding on such land as is merely made wet by rain-water, nor by pasturing 

 in irrigated meadows, unless such meadows are irrigated by bog-water. 



Having paid great attention for many years to these points, it is my 

 humble opinion that one great cause of sheep's being rotted may be traced 

 to the circumstance of their eating the noxious weed and scum in question, 

 arising from soil contaminated by impure water. 



I would beg to observe that a drain laid only to the depth of 2 or 3 feet 

 (the common depth of draining) will not prove effectual, as the bog-pipes 

 arise in a perpendicular direction, and if the drain be not laid to the depth 

 of those pipes, no good effect can be expected, nor can it be said that such 

 land is effectually drained, so that sheep may feed on it with safety. — Note 

 by Mr, Edw\\ed May, of East-Hampstead Park, near Bracknell, Berkshire. 



The preceding remarks M'ere transmitted at my request, by an individual 

 in whose matured experience on all subjects connected with drainage I can 

 individually place the greatest reliance ; and Mr. Dean, a member of our 

 committee, having placed in my hands a small work written in 1651, by 

 Hartlib, the friend of Milton, I have found it to contain not only observa- 

 tions which coincide with those of Mr. May, but further interesting notices 

 of the sheep-rot-iceed in question : the author of the tract however attri- 

 buting not only to the noxious plant, hut also to the circumstances of the soil 

 and locality, the origin of the rot in sheep in such situations.— Downshire, 



The bad effects of a s/ieep-rot iceed, or of bog-icater, are, in my own opinion, 

 very doubtful. The rot in sheep is probably the produce of ground which 

 has been lately wet, and then the surface exposed to the action of the air. The 

 grass and other plants, previously weakened or destroyed by the moisture, 

 become decomposed, or rotten ; and, in that decomposition, certain gases, or 

 miasmata, may be developed, that cannot long be breathed, or scarcely 

 breathed at all by the sheep without producing the rot.— W. Youatt. 



