602 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions, 
wasted mucli, can alone be successful. Our object then is to impart 
strength and energy to the constitution of the animal, or to make the 
habitat of the parasites unpleasant to them, and if possible destroy 
them in the situations in which they arc, so that as dead matter they 
may be expelled in the act of coughing, or with the ordinary secre- 
tions. To strengthen the constitution, the animals should be supplied 
with the most generous food in a concentrated form. Instead of 
keeping them simply upon grass, artificial or natural, dming the 
summer months — for it is in the summer, or on the approach of 
autumn, that they are generally aflected — or feeding them upon tur- 
nips alone in winter, it is necessary to thi'ow into their systems as 
much nitrogenous food as possible. Cake, corn, and so on, should be 
used unsparingly in every case of the kind. Such food should be 
given early, because when diarrhoea has once set in, the system is in 
such a weakened condition that it will then be of little or no use. The 
cause of diarrhoea is rather an important question in adopting medical 
treatment in cases of this description. It appears to depend not so 
much upon the mere prostration of the vital powers of the animal as a 
whole, as upon the weakened condition of the powers of digestion and 
a,ssimilation. Everybody knows that even when our digestive powers 
are strong, if we take anything into the system which is not very 
digestible, it irritites the stomach and intestinal canal, and is fre- 
quently ejected from the system with diarrhoea. Nothing, indeed, is 
so conamou as to have an ordinary attack of diarrhoea just simply 
depending \ipon indigestible matter taken into the system, from 
which nature frees herself as quickly as she can. Apply the same 
reasoning to the organisation of the sheep. When its powers of di- 
gestion and of assimilation have become exceedingly weak, the food, 
instead of being digested and appropriated to the requirements of 
the system, acts as an irritant to the stomach and bowels, and passes off 
undigested and unappropriated through the intestinal canal. What, 
then, imder such circumstances, would be the use of giving cake, corn, 
&c. ? Why, it would be no more digested than ordinary herbage ; for, 
if grass could not be digested, surely cake and corn could not. But 
while the digestive organs are not affected to any considerable extent, 
wo may strengthen the constitution of the animal by giving it highly- 
nutritious food. 
Of the anthelmintic agents given as remedies, some are goo(I and 
powerful, and some of no use at all. Practice has shown that tur- 
pentine, in conjunction with a little oil, and tincture of assa- 
foetida, is about as nice a compound as can be given. Turpentine is 
a. very old remedy in diseases of this description, and it is particularly 
serviceable and valuable, because it is eliminated from the system 
through the medium of the respiratory organs. Wc want to bring 
something to bear as directly as possible upon the parasites in the 
situation whicli they occupy in the ramifications of the bronchial 
tubes. But, if any medicinal agent directly descends the wind2)il)e, if 
would only produce more mischief, and be the means of carrying off 
tlie animals whose lives we desired to preserve. The alternative is to 
