140 
The Rot in Sheep. 
relative proportion of its several constituents. Dr. Carpenter and 
other physiologists rightly remark that a diminution of the specific 
gravity of the blood, from a loss of its saline and albuminous 
materials, predisposes to haemorrhage, congestion, &c. ; and such 
■\ve know to be the condition of this fluid comparatively early in this 
disease. The lungs, in such cases as these, are red throughout, 
being charged with blood. They are also heavy to the feel, and 
portions of them will be found to sink in water. The vessels of 
the pleura and pericardium are likewise overloaded with blood. 
The flesh of such animals is of fair colour and tolerably firm. 
Some fat also, not much changed in consistence, exists around 
the kidneys, and in other places of ordinary deposit. The yellow 
hue of the tissues, so generally present, is considerably less in 
amount, and is sometimes scarcely to be noticed. The liver, 
however, is mostly of a clay colour, and its ducts are crowded 
with distomata. 
In concluding this section of our essay, we add a few words 
with reference to the effluvium which arises from the carcasses of 
rotten sheep. This is often extremely nauseating, even when the 
animal is opened directly after death. We have on more than 
one occasion known persons to be taken seriously ill when 
engaged in opening many rotten sheep at a time. A remarkable 
instance, not only of sickness, but of death, was brought to our 
notice in August of 1 854. A person of intemperate habits, fol- 
lowing the occupation of a country butcher, was employed in 
skinning and dressing a number of rotten sheep on the premises 
of a farmer in the county of Norfolk. The sheep were neces- 
sarily opened when warm ; and, while he was so engaged, he 
complained greatly of the sickening smell. The same evening 
he was attacked with choleraic disease, and two days afterwards 
was a corpse. 
That the bodies of rotten sheep quickly undergo putrefaction 
is well known, and elsewhere this is assigned as a reason for the 
name given to the malady ; but that injury may arise from the 
effluvium accompanying the vapour given off from their still 
warm bodies after death is not so generally understood. 
Treatment of Affected Sheep. 
The successful treatment of a disease is necessarily based on a 
knowledge of its pathology, without which the application of 
all remedial means becomes mere empiricism. It were well for 
the ends of science if information of this kind invariably tended 
to the discovery of a cure for each separate affection, but unfortu- 
nately it too frequently leads to the very opposite result. The 
