The Rot in Sheep. 



71 



thus spoke in 1532 : " Take both your hands and turn up the 

 lid of his eye, and if it be ruddy and have red strings in the 

 white of the eye, then he is sound ; and if the eye be white like 

 tallowe, and the stringes dark-coloured, then he is rotten." 



Gervase Markham, in his Cheape and Good Husbandry, pre- 

 viously quoted from, has a curious epitome of the symptoms, 

 which we here transcribe : " If a sheepe be sound and perfit, his 

 eye will be bright and cheerefull, the white pure without spot, 

 and the strings red ; his gummes also will be red, his teeth 

 white and even, his skinne on his brisket will be red, and so 

 will each side betwixt his body and his shoulder where the 

 wool grows not ; his skinne in general will be loose, his wool 

 fast, his breath long, and his feete not hot ; but if he be unsound, 

 then these signes will have contrary faces, his eyes will be heavy, 

 pale, and spotted, his breast and gummes white, his teeth yellow 

 and foule, and his wooll when it is pulled will easily part from 

 the body." 



In addition to the symptoms we have named it will be found 

 that the animal's appetite becomes fastidious. To-day it feeds 

 pretty well ; to-morrow it will scarcely touch food of any de- 

 scription. An increased thirst, however, is now present, and 

 continues till the end. The animal is often going to the brook 

 or pond, or, if prevented from doing this, will omit no oppor- 

 tunity of drinking from the little hollows which may exist on 

 the surface of the field. This desire for water evidently depends 

 on the continued loss by effusion of this important constituent 

 of the blood. No less than 784 parts out of every thousand of 

 pure blood consist of water. The relative proportions of its 

 constituents may be here given, as it will help to explain many 

 of the phenomena of the rot. They are : — 



Water 784* 



Red corpuscles 131* 



Albumen of serum 70* 



Saline matters G*03 



Extractive, nitty, and other matters G'77 



Fibrine '.. .. 2-2 



1000- 



Associated with the increased thirst is an irregular state of the 

 bowels. For a few days together diarrhoea will be present, and 

 when it ceases, the ordinary condition of the irrces returns for 

 a time. A persistence of this variable state of the evacuations, 

 when not traceable to a change of food, or other common causes, 

 is to be regarded as a suspicious circumstance. It often depends 

 on an altered state of the bile, by which the fluid acts as an 

 irritant to the mucous membrane of the intestines; sometimes, 



