154 
The Rot ill Sheep. 
May and after, as you see cause, according to the drynesse or 
wetnesse of the weather. If you be carefull to foHow this prac- 
tice," he says, " you shall keepe your sheepe from rot." 
Our chief object in giving the above quotation is to show 
that, as early as the beginning of the SGVcnteenth century, 
some persons had great fear of a wet spring producing the 
disease. The placing of the period of danger, however, so early 
as April, we conceive to be an error ; but we agree, nevertheless, 
if not with the manner, at least with the principle of giving to 
sheep a saline and saccharine mixture during the continuance of 
wet weather. The quantity here ordered of salt might possibly 
be sufficient for good, as a destroyer of the penultimate forms of 
the fluke, but certainly not that of the malt liquor as a heat- 
giving element to the body. 
Bradley recommends two drachms of powdered juniper-berries 
to be mixed with a quarter of a pint of sea-salt, and added to a 
bushel of oats, for feeding sheep in wet weather ; and he remarks 
that where the juniper grows naturally "sheep never are subject 
to rot." 
Few sheep would eat food containing even a small quantity 
of juniper-berries, and if it were otherwise, we can conceive 
of no advantage resulting from their use. The observation of 
sheep being free from rot where the juniper-tree is indigenous 
seems to us to be putting effects for causes. The plant luxuriates 
in a dry and sandy district, and in such a soil the. cause of rot 
is not encountered. 
Ellis's remarks point to the protective influence, among otlier 
things, of the turpentines as existing in the Scotch and other fir- 
trees, and he recommends their cultivation both " in moist and 
barren gravelly land." " Sheep," he says, " may be preserved 
in a great measure from rot by having enough of the loppings of 
this ti'ee to browse on, for the quality of this evergreen tur- 
pentine-tree is hot, dry, and balsamick, and is a purifier of the 
blood, and an utter enemy to the breed of worms and other 
insects in the bodies of animals." 
After the statements we have made with reference to turpen- 
tine when speaking of the treatment of rot, it is unnecessary to 
comment on this recommendation. We take no objection in 
the abstract to sheep being allowed to eat of the leaves of the 
Scotch or other common varieties of fir, but unless far more 
efficient means are adopted, the disease will not be prevented 
thereby. 
With these selections from the older authors we shall be con- 
tent. The prophylactic measures which possess the greatest 
variety have been chosen as examples, and therefore we shall now 
give our own view of the means which should be adopted. It 
