408 
Lamenesses of Sheep and Lamhs. 
Murrain. — Foot-rot sometimes assumes an epizootic character, 
or, in other words, it spreads over a large extent of country, 
attacking at the same time many animals, and exhibiting the same 
general symptoms. This epizootic foot-rot is somewhat different 
from the ordinary forms of the disease, and is known under the 
name of murrain, or the vesicular epizootic. It docs not confine 
its attacks to sheep alone, but affects cattle, pigs, goats, and other 
cloven-footed animals. It has not been long knf)wn in this 
country, having been first noticed so recently as 1839. On its 
first introduction it often assumed a serious form, and sometimes 
proved fatal ; but of late years its prevalence and severity have 
much abated. Such phenomena are frequently observed in con- 
nection with epizootic and epidemic diseases — their virulence, at 
first formidable, gradually becomes exhausted, and tlieir preva- 
lence circumscribed. If a sheep, becoming lame from epizootic 
foot-rot or murrain, be caught, and the interdigital space examined, 
the skin is found drj' and thickened and covered with little red 
elevations. Within a few hours the skin is raised into blisters, 
vesicles, or aphthae, which sometimes extend round the coronet. 
At first about the size of a millet seed, they gradually enlarge and 
occupy six or eight times their original surface : they have undu- 
lating irregular margins. They contain at first a clear serous 
fluid, which gradually becomes opaque from the presence of 
lymph. In favourable cases the contents dry up or the vesicles 
burst, and a thin dry eschar or scab is formed. In many cases 
similar vesicles appear in the mouth, interfere Avith mastication, 
and cause a constant drivelling of saliva. When the disease 
affects sheep on turnips, it sometimes prevents their eating for 
several days, and thus checks their growth. Vesicles about the 
mouth are seldom, however, so numerous or troublesome among 
sheep as among cattle. A similar eruption also occasionally 
appears on the thin skin between the legs, and more particularly 
on the udder and teats, where the vesicles are frequently large and 
numerous. I have sometimes seen much inconvenience thus pro- 
duced among pregnant and nursing ewes. The infiammation of 
the skin and mucous surfaces of the udder is apt to be increased 
by the sucking of the lamb, and sometimes involves the paren- 
chyma of the organ, leading to the formation of jius, and occa- 
sioning the destruction of a large portion of the gland. Accom- 
panying the eruption of these vesicles there is fever, usually 
exceedingly slight, but sometimes obtruding itself on notice by a 
hot mouth, an accelerated pulse, quicker and difficult breathing, 
with impaired appetite and retarded digestion. Tlie febrile 
symptoms generally diminish as soon as the vesicles are fully 
formed. Throughout the complaint, lameness is of course ob- 
servable, with tenderness and swelling around the coronet. 
