The Rot in Sheep. 



63 



| found to his entire satisfaction that the ewes were not rotted while there. 

 ! He then proceeded to the farm where the ewes were put to the ram, and was 



equally satisfied they had not received the disease there. He then traced the 

 ! sheep on their way home to a field where they remained for the night, the 



lame sheep being unloaded and lying in the field with the rest : there also he 

 I was perfectly satisfied from the most minute inquiries the rot had never been 

 | known. Still tracing the sheep homewards, he came to a pothouse by the 



roadside, where the man had gone in to have his dinner, leaving the nineteen 

 j ewes in the road and the lame ewe in the cart ; here was found to be a most 

 i rotting district. The result was that the whole of the nineteen died rotten, 



before lambing-time, and the ewe in the cart lived for years and bred and 



did well. 



" The second case I would mention occurred to a very intimate friend and 

 , neighbour of mine who placed his ' tegs ' (viz. young sheep of the first year) 

 I on a piece of seeds adjoining a meadow by the river Learn, which in wet 

 seasons is sure to give the rot. Such was the case in the year in question. 

 ; Some trees had been felled between the seeds and the meadow, and, the gaps 

 in the hedge not having been properly made up, the shepherd was sent after 

 harvest 'to stop them. Having done a part of them he went home to his 

 dinner, and to his surprise when he returned he found all the tegs in the 

 j meadow. He put them out immediately, and they never got in afterwards, 

 1 and no one on the farm had ever seen them in before ; but the consequence 

 was, that the whole of the tegs were rotted, and most of them died before the 

 j next shear-day, and those poor wretched creatures which remained to that 

 period cast off their wool and subsequently dwindled away and died. This 

 farm is a perfectly sound one, with the exception of the meadow in question." 



How, it may be asked, are we to account for such facts as 

 1 these? The defenders of the theory of innutritious diet, ex- 

 posure to wet, or allied causes being the source of rot, surely 

 will not be bold enough to assert that the feeding of sheep on 

 watery food for a few hours, would prove so permanently pre- 

 judicial to the functions of animal life as to produce a fatal 

 ! disease of this kind, notwithstanding that the sheep quickly are 

 removed from such food to that which is in every way unob- 

 jectionable. We see no satisfactory solution of the problem, 

 except the one which is obtained by a knowledge of the natural 

 history of the liver-fluke. This unravels the mystery, and leaves 

 the mind free from doubt as to the cause of these occurrences. 

 Nothing is easier to understand than that the partaking of wet 

 grasses, even for an hour or two, where the penultimate forms 

 of the fluke abound, would convey a sufficient quantity of the 

 embryos into the digestive system of the sheep — their proper 

 habitat for complete development — to bring to maturity flukes 

 enough to lay the foundation for the disease 1 . 



The Period of Greatest Danger. 



It is considered by many and probably by the larger propor- 

 tion of sheepowners, that the months of September and October 

 are by far the most fruitful in causing the rot. Especially docs 



