Report on Liver- Rot. 
145 
any rot has appeared in the marsh, except among the sheep 
and lambs sent away in the autumn and returned in spring, and 
the loss among these is frightful. Individually I have little 
faith in the snail theory. I had not heard of any authenticated 
cases of cattle or horses being affected by the rot." 
Rot, although not so prevalent in Mid-Kent, has here and 
there caused serious losses. 
Mr. James CroujJ Hatch, of Lenham, Maidstone, gives the 
following information : — " Never until this year have I had 
a rotten sheep, but since last Christmas I have lost some 
30 breeding ewes with this disease. As I usually shear nearly 
2000 sheep and lambs annually, this mortality is not, of course 
(pro 7-ata) a very large affair. I believe my sheep contracted the 
disease on a piece of naturally wet, but drained, pasture about the 
end of November. I have no symptom of it in any individual 
of my flock, except the ewes that were feeding on the land in 
question. I sold about 30 refuse wethers at Maidstone Fair 
on October 17th, 1879, which I am told have all since died 
with the disease ; but these must have contracted the disease 
after that date, as they were then drafted from some 300 
others, every one of which is now perfectly sound, and being 
fattened upon my best land in Romney Marsh. Many sheep 
were lost in this neighbourhood from rot in 1860 ; fortunately 
I had then not one diseased. In that year I purchased some 
ewe-tegs from a friend in East Kent. I had them delivered, 
and mixed them with my breeding-flock on October 21st, 
and they all proved perfectly healthy, although the whole flock 
they were drafted from perished from rot, I am of opinion," 
Mr. Hatch adds, " that the disease is often contracted later 
in the year than is usually supposed, and whatever may be 
the direct cause of infection, I quite believe that debility 
of the system, produced by exposure of the animals to adverse 
weather and unwholesome food in bad seasons, will predispose 
sheep to contract the rot. I have known cattle in East Sussex 
lost this year from liver-rot. The symptoms are precisely the 
same as in sheep." 
Mr. C. Whitehead, Barming House, Maidstone, writes : " I do 
not know of any sheep that had died from liver-rot contracted 
in this neighourhood. I bought a lot of 120 tegs from the 
Weald of Kent in October, which were put on to fatten at once. 
Soon after January they showed symptoms of being fluked, and 
they were killed off while their flesh was fit for human food. In 
every case their livers were honeycombed by, and full of, flukes. 
I was informed by the person from whom I bought the tegs that 
10 very poor ones were taken from them, as not being good 
enough to send to me, and that these 10 are now alive, and 
VOL. XVII.— S. S. L 
