14 



The Rot in Sheep. 



in condition for want of food : but we never hear of sheep 

 which have been so buried becoming rotten. This of itself 

 is sufficient to overset Mr. Hogg's theory, notwithstanding that 

 it is announced with an unusual degree of confidence. We 

 learn from Mr. Hogg, himself, that sheep die of the rot while in 

 good condition and even when very fat, and the whole account 

 he gives of this disease seems to contradict his ideas respecting 

 the cause of it. A sudden fall in condition may accompany the 

 disease without having induced it. A sheep may continue to 

 fill its belly and yet fall off. It is the cause of the transition 

 from fatness to leanness, and not the transition itself, that ought 

 to be looked to. If that cause be hunger, rot will not be the 

 consequence, but the usual effects of starvation will follow." 



Fairbairn, the " Lammermuir Farmer," likewise combats 

 Hogg's opinion at considerable length, and among other things 

 he remarks that " in no case that has hitherto come under my 

 observation has 4 a sudden fall in condition ' in the smallest degree 

 contributed to bring on this mortal ravager ; nay, in many cases 

 with which I have been most intimately acquainted, it could 

 neither be traced with the strictest scrutiny to this source, nor 

 did this follow even as the consequence of the disease." 



D. Price, in his System of Sheep-grazing as practised in Romney 

 Marsh, 1809, coincides in opinion with J. Lawrence, a well- 

 known and contemporary writer on the diseases of cattle, that the 

 affection is due to debility produced by excess of moisture in 

 " either the earth, air, or food :" while R. Parkinson, author of A 

 Treatise on Live Stock, 1810, favours the theory of flukes being 

 a cause ; but, like those who preceded him, gives no satisfactory 

 account of their existence within the biliary ducts. 



The " Lammermuir Farmer," in his Treatise on Sheep, 1823, 

 previously quoted, considers the pasturing of sheep during the 

 autumnal part of the year on meadows, where from the combined 

 influences of warmth and moisture a superabundance of grass 

 exists, as the cause of rot, and remarks that, " if any person can 

 come forward and prove that it is not so caused, I shall freely 

 grant that, with our present knowledge, the true cause still lies 

 hid in the dark recesses of nature." 



He also makes some observations with reference to the 

 existence of flukes in the liver, which we transcribe, as thereby 

 we have a distinct proof that the malady which he considers 

 to be produced by luxuriant autumnal grasses is none other 

 than the true rot. He says, " It is a curious and important 

 fact that fluke-worms are found in the livers of all rotten sheep, 

 and I have no doubt of these insects being the immediate 

 cause of death, but how they came there has never yet been 

 properly accounted for." He enters next on a dissertation as to 

 the probable origin of the fluke, and concludes by remarking, " but 



