Report oil Liver-Rot. 
201 
to the butcher. In such cases delays are particularly dangerous, 
and the first loss is generally the least. There are numerous 
sad reflections of sheep worth GO.s'. to 7(),s-. held on in hope of 
recovery, and rapidly sinking, until in five or six weeks they 
become worth little more tlian the price of the skin. 
Sheep naturally grazing closely are particularly liable to pick 
up the fluke embryo in its dangerous encysted form. They 
take it in with the food rather than with the drink. They bite 
closely into the roots of the moist grass where either the 
infested slug or its living exuvia; are lodged. The large mass 
of warm food always in the first stomach of ruminants doubtless 
protects the intruder from the solvent effects of the gastric 
fluids and favours its further development. There is no difference 
in the liability of different breeds of sheep to liver-rot, but 
young, weakly, or worn-out subjects sooner suffer from the 
impoverishing effects of the parasites. Ewes clearing up 
behind other sheep, often indifferently nourished in autumn and 
winter, and pulled down maturing or nursing a pair of lambs, 
furnish a large percentage of fatal cases. Cattle, although 
certainly less liable to the disease, and not punished so severely 
by it, with the extended multiplication and distribution of the 
parasite have very generally taken up numbers sufficient to 
produce serious disorganisation of the liver. In many counties 
observant graziers and feeders assert that the pest has taken 
a year off the growth of their young beasts, added more than one 
penny per pound to the cost of laying on beef, and not un- 
Irequently knocked one penny per pound off the value of the 
carcass. Although several cases of flukes in horses are recorded, 
they are fortunately rare. 
Farmers naturally desire a remedy which will kill the flukes 
and cure the sheep. This is perfectly feasible when the 
cercaria? are first taken up, and whilst they are still lodged in the 
stomach. Salt and water, turpentine, small doses of carbolic 
acid, or other anthelmintics will then destroy them. When a 
week or ten days later they are carried to the liver and deposited 
there, remedial treatment becomes much less certain, and the 
certainty diminishes as the flukes, attaining maturity, escape 
into the bile-ducts. Particularly hopeless becomes all treatment 
when numerous parasites have produced extensive derangement 
and disease of the liver, and when impoverished blood and 
weakness are steadily pulling down the patient. Where the 
disease has been early detected, the most hopeful results are 
obtained from the use of full doses of turpentine. Sheep should 
have an ounce dissolved in three ounces of milk repeated daily 
for four or five days, and after two or three days' remission 
again persisted with. Such treatment is not, however, desirable 
