The Rot in Sheep. 



3 



MM. Hamont and Fischer, of the Veterinary School of Abou- 

 Zabel, in their treatise on the disease — a translation of which 

 will be found in the seventh volume of The Veterinarian, 

 1834 — state that " it appears every year in Egypt after the fall 

 of the Nile, and follows and keeps pace with the subsidence of 

 the waters. In the superior parts of Upper Egypt it commences 

 about the end of July ; nearer Cairo in August ; in the environs 

 of the capital in October and November ; and during the months 

 of December, January, and February, in the Delta. It is most 

 obstinate, and continues the longest, in the neighbourhood of 

 the confluence of the waters. In Lower Egypt it lasts about 

 120 or 130 days, and it disappears soonest and is least fatal when 

 the rise of the Nile has not been considerable. Desolation and 

 death accompany it wherever it passes. The Arabs say that this 

 pest annually destroys 16,000 sheep in Egypt, and that its vic- 

 tims usually perish on the twenty-fifth, thirtieth, thirty-fifth, or 

 fortieth day after the apparent attack." 



Without entering into further particulars of the antiquity, 

 history, or wide-spread existence of rot — the facts we have nar- 

 rated being sufficient for our present purpose— we pass on to 

 speak of its several outbreaks in our own country. 



Peeiodio Outbkeaks. 



The most reliable accounts we have met with of the early 

 devastations from this disease in England are to be found in 

 Ellis's Shepherd's Sure Guide, 1749. Speaking of " the great 

 losses that several farmers sustained by the most noted sheep- 

 rot in 1735," he says, " A farmer living in the vale of Aylesbury, 

 who rented a farm of 165/. a year, declared to me he had lost two 

 flocks of his folding sheep by the rot between May 1735 and 

 May 1736, and thus came to great poverty indeed, for he never 

 could surmount the loss of 300 sheep in one year. 



" Another Vale farmer, living at Stutely, rotted his large flock 

 by keeping them too long before he had them to market, and, 

 when he did, the sheep were so lean that he could make no more 

 than 6d. apiece for them, and at this price he sold 100 in 

 Leighton Market in October 1735, rather than drive them home 

 again. He was sure they would die, and, dying under a lean 

 rot, they would be only fit for dunging the ground with ; for 

 this rot came on so fast, and was so severe and general a one, 

 that thousands of sheep were not worth offering for sale." 



" This rot of sheep and lambs was the most general one," he 

 adds, " that, I believe, has happened in the memory of man, 

 because it rotted those deer, sheep, lambs, hares, and coneys, 

 that fed on lands where rain-waters were retained on or near 



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