The Rot in Sheep. 



91 



particularly by a gradual falling away in condition. This was 

 first observed about mid-winter ; but the animal nevertheless 

 lived on and produced a lamb — a small and weak one — at the 

 end of February. After this she too fell a sacrifice to the 

 disease. 



With this report we conclude our remarks on the treatment of 

 rot, and pass on to consider the 



Prevention of the Disease. 



When investigations into the nature of a disease forbid the 

 hope of its cure, it is indeed most fortunate if they should show 

 that much may be done to prevent its occurrence. The old 

 adage rightly teaches that " prevention is better than cure," but 

 the prevention of that which is incurable seems to rise above the 

 proverb itself. Rot, when fully established, can only be viewed 

 as being incurable ; but nevertheless, the knowledge of its cause 

 and nature holds out no faint hopes of our being able to prevent 

 it. In times gone by, various means for the attainment of this 

 desirable end were suggested, and as some of these have a close 

 connection with those now advocated, we shall follow the course 

 we have adopted throughout these pages, and glean from the 

 early writers on the disease. 



Leonard Mascall thus advises : — 



" Against the rot, if you feare your shcepe in wet times, ye shal put them 

 into a house three daies and three nights without meat or drinke. Then give 

 to euery hundreth one bushel of bran mixt with so much salt laid in trotfes, 

 and hunger will make them eate it; then driue them to the water and let 

 them drinke their fill. Then let them be chast with a curre a good space 

 after, and put them then into what ground yee will for one quarter, and they 

 shall take no hurt. Then must you take them up the next quarter and seme 

 them so again. Then must ye vse them foure times in the yeare in doubti'ull 

 times, if ye w ill saue your sheepe from rot." 



We can scarcely imagine that, even under the pressure of severe 

 hunger, sheep would eat anything like the amount of salt hero 

 spoken of, that is, presuming- the bushel of 1587 to be equal in 

 size to the one in present use. Be this as it may, the proceeding 

 could not be adopted without considerable danger to the lives 

 of the animals, for the quantity of salt would exceed half a pint 

 to each sheep. It is easy, however, to understand the principle 

 which is intended to be thus put into operation, viz. that oi 

 producing a quick action on the bowels hy the direct irritating 

 effects of the salt, for the purpose of expelling any Injurious 

 matters which might be contained within them. This probably 

 was regarded as the chief source ol benefit; hut then it is to 

 be noticed that Mascall speaks of the security afforded to the 

 animals lor the three succeeding months. Immunity, it existing, 



