40 
Hereditary Diseases of Sheep and Pigs. 
loss of appetite, and irregularity of the bowels — to colic, with 
flatulence and griping — to diarrhoea, obstinate, long-continued, 
and often recurring — and to enteritis or inflammation of the intes- 
tines, accompanied by its usual symptoms of uneasiness, flatu- 
lence, loss of appetite, frequent and severe colicky pains, and 
more or less tenderness of the abdomen, evinced especially when 
pressure is applied over the right iliac region. In enteritis the 
fluid faeces are sometimes tinged with blood, and the pulse is 
small and rapid. As the disease approaches a fatal termination 
there is much dullness, nausea, and general prostration. On dis- 
section it is generally found that the posterior parts of the small 
intestines have suffered most, tliat the L-vrge intestines are also 
involved, though to a less extent, and that the inflammation has 
chiefly located itself in the vessels lying immediately within the 
mucous coat, but has also sometimes extended to the serous, and 
in bad cases to the muscular coat. Enteritis and the various 
disorders just mentioned are of exceedingly common occurrence 
among pigs possessed of that faulty external organisation which 
we have above described ; and as this faulty organisation is 
notoriously hereditary, those weaknesses and diseases depending 
on it must be hereditary likewise. 
Pigs, from their susceptibility to cold, are often attacked by 
rheumatism, especially in its more chronic forms. This is a con- 
stitutional disease, depending on the presence in the blood of 
some poisonous materials, probably analogous to those found 
within the gouty joints of man. Like other constitutional dis- 
eases, it is accompanied by certain local symptoms. In pigs it 
chiefly affects the fibrous and serous tissues of the larger joints, 
gives evidence of local inflammation and general fever, progresses 
with slow and lingering steps, and does not, like ordinary inflam- 
mation, terminate in suppuration and gangrene. It most com- 
monly occurs aftong young pigs, and usually owes its origin to 
lying in a wet cold bed. It always produces alteration of 
structure in the parts affected, which predisposes the individual 
to subsequent attacks, and tends to reappear in the progeny, ren- 
dering them also specially predisposed to the complaint. 
Scrofula is more common in pigs than in any of the other 
domesticated animals. It sometimes carries off Avhole litters 
before they are many weeks old ; and, as in sheep, presents itself 
in several different forms, but especially in that of pulmonary 
consumption, which is very common and fatal among many of 
the more improved varieties of swine. In pigs, consumption 
exhibits the same symptoms as in other animals — gradually in- 
creasing emaciation ; imperfect digestion and assimilation ; dis- 
turJjed respiration, with a frequent, short, hacking cough ; weak- 
ened and unusually accelerated circulation ; diarrhoea of a most 
