TJie Hot in Sheep. 



07 



importance to the practical agriculturist. During its continu- 

 ance he may avail himself of many means which would to a 

 great extent secure him against a loss, which otherwise would be 

 most serious; but too often he fails in the right application of 

 these means, because he is not warned by any symptoms to 

 suspect the existence of the malady. 



Much has been said about sheep fattening somewhat quicker 

 than usual in the early stages of rot, and occasionally attention 

 has been drawn to this circumstance as warranting a suspicion 

 of the animal's soundness. Mr. Youatt, when speaking of tin? 

 early evidences of the disease, says, " there is no loss of condition, 

 but quite the contrary, for the sheep in the early stage of rot has 

 a great propensity to fatten. Mr. 13akewell," he adds, " was 

 aware of this, for he used to overflow certain of his pastures, and 

 when the water was run off, turn those sheep upon them which he 

 wanted to prepare for the market. They speedily became rotted, 

 and in the early stage of the rot they accumulated flesh with 

 wonderful rapidity. By this manoeuvre he used to gain five or 

 six weeks on his neighbours." 



Dr. Harrison has also some remarks to the same purport. 

 " Several graziers and butchers," he says, " with whom I have 

 conversed at different times, having observed that sheep are much 

 disposed to feed during the first three or four weeks after being 

 tainted, omit no opportunity of producing the disease to increase 

 their profit." 



Ellis likewise, as far back as 1749, drew attention to the 

 same circumstance, remarking that " at the beginning of a rot, no 

 sheep feeds nor fats faster than a rotten sheep, notwithstanding 

 the plaise-worms multiply as the rot increases. This makes 

 the common saying true, that no sheep thrives faster than a 

 rotten sheep does for a time, and that no sheep decays sooner 

 after it begins to sink in its flesh." 



The tendency to accumulate fat by a diseased animal may 

 seem paradoxical, but the more we know of the nature and cause 

 of rot, and of the physiology of the organ chiefly implic ated in 

 the malady, the less contradictory does the statement appear. The 

 physiological intricacies of this question, involving as they do 

 a knowledge of the processes of digestion and assimilation of the 

 food, respiration, circulation, and the maintenance of animal 

 heat, forbid, however, in an essay of this kind, our doing more 

 than giving an epitome of the subject. 



Physiologically considered, the liver is an assi mi '/a ton/ and 

 secretory organ, as well as an excretory one, in each of which 

 offices it plays an important part in the manufacture and purifi- 

 cation of the blood. The vessel by which it receives blood 

 for the secretion of bile — the portal vein takes its origin from 



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