Foot-rot in Sheep. 
737 
is present, it may no doubt be rapidly developed under these 
circumstances, especially in a showery time. Some people say 
thev can produce the disease in a fortnight amongst sound 
animals by placing them in unfavourable circumstances for the 
feet. I have had young sheep for nine months at a stretch, 
penned up under very much more than ordinarily unfavourable 
circumstances for the feet, without the least trace of foot-rot 
arising. It was only necessary to remove excess of horn at the 
middle and at the end of the time, the animals continuing as 
sound and upright as possible. One of my neighbours saw 
these sheep from time to time, expecting them to break out 
every day, although he knew I had never had a case under the 
ordinary routine of the farm. When he found that no ill effects 
followed, he began to believe there must be something in what 
I had told him, and commenced operations upon his own sheep, 
which were very lame with foot-rot at the time. The result 
was the complete eradication of foot-rot from his young sheep 
in a short time, and from the older ones in a reasonable time 
afterwards. He is now probably completely free from this 
distressing complaint, not having had a case for months past, 
although he had not been without it for years previously. 
This is the only case I have ever known in which the foot- 
rot has been rationally treated with a view to stamping it out, 
and it appears to have succeeded. As a rule, the difficulty is 
to get people to be particular enough, and persistent enough, in 
following out the treatment to the end, instead of leaving off 
when the disorder is apparently no longer doing any damage, 
or neglecting 1 it when a busv time comes on. It is a work which 
DO " 
requires the master's eye constantly, or, better still, his hands 
as well. What, however, is even more important is not to re- 
introduce the disease unawares after once getting rid of it ; yet 
this is what I believe is constantly being done, though quite 
unwittingly, and is the reason most people think the disorder 
comes spontaneously — and it certainly looks like it, developing 
with rapidity as it does under favourable circumstances. I am 
not at all surprised that practical men (who are not often 
scientific) should have been misled by such an insidious disease, 
and that the opinions concerning it are almost as many as the 
people who hold them. Scientific inquirers seldom have much 
practical acquaintance with it, the poor sheep scarcely coming 
under their notice, at least as regards their feet. Hence, for 
generations, our knowledge of the disorder has made but little 
progress. Flockmasters freely admit that nothing to which sheep 
are liable is more annoying, or gives more trouble, or is a source 
of greater loss to them than foot-rot. If what I maintain be 
VOL. I. T. S. — 4 3 C 
