386 
Parturient Fever in Ewes. 
food ; during the next two or three days she eats but little, ap- 
pears dull and stupid ; after this time there is a degree of 
general weakness, loss of appetite, and giddiness, and a dis- 
charge of dark colour from the vagina : whilst the flock is driven 
from fold to fold the affected sheep loiters behind and staggers 
in her gait, the head is carried downward, and the eyelids partly 
closed. If parturition takes place during this stage of the dis- 
ease, and the animal is kept warm and carefully nursed, recovery 
will frequently take place in two or three days ; if, on the con- 
trary, no relief is afforded, symptoms of a typhoid* character 
present themselves ; the animal is found in one corner of the 
fold, the head down, and extremely uneasy, the body is fre- 
quently struck with the hind feet, a dark-coloured fcetid dis- 
charge continues to flow from the vagina, and there is great 
prostration of strength. A pair of lambs are now often expelled 
in a high state of putrefaction ; and the ewe down, and unable to 
rise, the head is crouching upon the ground, and there is extreme 
insensibility ; the skin may be punctured and the finger placed 
under the eyelids without giving any evidence of pain ; the 
animal now rapidly sinks and dies, often in tliree or four days 
from the commencement of the attack. Ewes that recover suffer 
afterwards for some time great weakness, and many parts of the 
body become denuded of wool. 
Treatment. — The ewe immediately noticed ill should be re- 
moved from the flock to a warm fold apart from all other sheep, 
and be fed with oatmeal gruel, bruised oats, and cut hay, with a 
little linseed-cake. If in two or three days the patient continues 
ill, is dull and iyeak, a dark-coloured foetid discharge from the 
vagina, and apparently uneasy, an attempt to remove the lambs 
should be made. The lambs in a great majority of cases at this 
period are dead, and their decomposition (that is, giving off 
putrid matter) is a frequent cause of giddiness and stupor in the 
ewe. If the os uteri (the entrance into the uterus) is not suffi- 
ciently dilated to admit of the hand of the operator, the vaginal 
, cavity and os uteri should be smeared every three hours with the 
extract of belladonna, and medicine as follows given : — 
Calomel viii grains. 
Extract hyoscyainus i tlraeiim. 
Oatmeal gruel viii ounces. 
Mix, and give two tablespoonfuls twice a day. 
Epsom salts viii ounces. 
Nitre I ounce. 
* Typhoid — a term frequently used in the medical science — is taken from a« 
symptom that marks certain cases (viz. Ti/ipo,-, stupor). It is fever complicated 
witli a detenniiiatiou of blood to tlic brain, and there is a degree of alteration in 
the character and properties of the bloud. 
