The Rot in Sheep. 



61 



hot, their sheep will take the rot in twenty-four hours." * Similar 

 statements are made in general terms by many authors subse- 

 quent to this date ; but the first special cases which are given 

 in detail, which we have as yet seen, occur in Dr. Harrison's 

 work, 1804. He asserts that the grandfather of a Mr. Harrison, 

 then residing at Fisherton, near Lincoln, " removed ninety sheep 

 from a considerable distance to his own residence. On coming 

 near to a bridge which is thrown over the Barlings River, one of 

 the drove fell into a ditch and fractured its fore leg. The shep- 

 herd immediately took it in his arms to a neighbouring house 

 and replaced the limb. During this time, which did not occupy 

 more than an hour, the remainder were left to graze in the 

 ditches and lane. The flock was driven home, and in a month 

 afterwards the other sheep joined its companions. The shepherd 

 soon discovered that all had contracted the rot, except the lame 

 sheep ; and as they were never separated upon any other occa- 

 sion, it is reasonable to conclude that the disorder was acquired 

 by feeding in the road and ditches." 



Again : " A Lincolnshire farmer purchased some turnips in 

 Nottinghamshire, upon which he intended to winter a flock of 

 sheep. The first division, consisting of about forty, were de- 

 tained one night at a village near to the place formerly alluded 

 to, by the overflowing of the Barlings Eau, and were put upon 

 a piece of flat land which leads to the river. The water had 

 not returned to its former channel more than a day or two. 

 Every one of the forty became rotten, whereas the other division, 

 which stopped nowhere by the way, escaped the disorder, and 

 remained well." Harrison further adds, " I have likewise been 

 informed by Mr. David Wright, that a few years since, as a 

 drove of sheep were passing through a long lane in the parish 

 of Irby, one of them, being weary, fell down in the middle of 

 the road. The others were permitted to range at large till their 

 companion was able to travel. They were then driven altogether 

 into a pasture, and it was soon discovered that only the tired 

 sheep had escaped the rot." 



We select two more cases of a similar kind, one from Parkin- 

 son, 1810, and the other from Youatt, 1837. The former writer 

 states that " a farmer in the neighbourhood of Wragby took 

 twenty shearing wethers to a fair in that town, leaving six 

 behind in the pasture where they had been summered. The 

 score sent to the fair, not being sold, were driven back and put 

 into the same field where the six had been left. In the course 

 of the winter every one of these died with the rot; but the six 

 :hat had been left behind all lived and did well." 



* ' The Countryman's Instructor,' \>. 72. 



