The Rot in Sheep. 
93 
to a profit, than do most scicntifK; observers, will be sure to find 
enouijh to cavil at in the nnelations of science. It is doubtless 
far easier to arj^iie that all entozoa are the consequence of im- 
j)aircd animal functions, than by a patient investigation to 
l)ecome conversant with their structure, habits, and mode of 
development, with a view to understand the way in'|Which they 
enter tin; bodies of animals and exert a deleterious eflect on 
health. 
Our own researches have recently brought to light another 
and a fruitful cause of the death of sheep of all ages, even 
under every variety of good feeding, management, and location,, 
from the existence of an undesc-ribed variety of worm of the class 
jUaria within the abomasum — the digestive stomach. These 
entozoa, to the extent of many hundreds, fix themselves to the 
inner surface of the stomach, by inserting their heads into the 
mucous membrane, where they are enabled to ]<eep their hold 
without much effort, despite the peristaltic action, by being fur- 
nished immediately behind their heads with four barbs, whose 
points are directed backwards, after the manner of a fish-hook.* 
The symptoms arising from their presence are remarkably akin 
to those of rot, consisting principally of long-continued wasting 
of the affected animal, leading ultimately to dropsy — death, 
being not unfrequently preceded by diarrhoea. Surely these 
cases are not — because their progress, symptoms, and fatality 
are so analogous to those of rot — to be designated by that name : 
if so it will require but another step for it to be boldly asserted 
that sheep take rot, and die therefrom, when fed on the richest 
and best food, when located, bied, or reared on the lightest land, 
and when exposed to a long prevalence of the driest weather, for, 
as before stated, it frequently happens that under all these circum- 
stances these entozoa abound in the stomach of the sheep. 
To proceed. It is important to remember, as bearing on the 
pathology of rot, that flukes occasionally locate themselves in 
young lambs, and so impair the structure of the liver by their 
number as quickly to destroy the animals — often before the 
true cause is suspected. A case in point was a few years since' 
brought under our notice. In September, 1853, we received 
from an amateur pupil of the Veterinary College, then resid- 
ing at Redgrave in Suffolk, two portions of the liver of two 
lambs that had died after a few days' illness. The lambs were 
black-faced Norfolks, and had been bred on heath-land near to 
Thetford, where rot may be said to be unknown. They had come 
upon the farm j ust six tceeks before, and were at once placed on 
* At some future time we hope to describe the anatomical peculiarities of tl.is 
interesting entozoon, aud to illustrate these by microscopic sketches. 
