204 
Report on Liver-Rot. 
and general health. Licked instinctively as it is by sheep, it 
probably destroys cercariae during their few days' lodgment in 
the stomachs, and may even somewhat retard their development 
if they should reach the liver. 
Preventive measures hitherto, however, are provokingly power- 
less to grapple with the myriads of fluke ova and more advanced 
fluke-forms which wet seasons and millions of infested animals 
have so widely distributed. The wonderfully prolific parasite 
in its various forms is tolerably tenacious of life : in one stage it 
is distributed in water, in another it is protected amongst the 
herbage, and again in still another phase it is preserved in the 
bodies of slugs — which numerous observers declare, amidst 
iavouring moisture, and in the absence of starlings and other 
bird enemies, have been multiplying. With the enormous 
distribution of fluke ova, greatly increased numbers of these 
molluscs must be dangerously infested, especially on all wet 
land. In the prevention of rot it is hence important to in- 
stitute a crusade against them, and adopt the several methods 
advised for their capture and destruction by Professor Rolleston 
and Mr. A. P. Thomas (p. 28). No very practicable means can 
be generally adopted to destroy the infested slugs and their 
living exuvia? by top-dressing the pastures. Their destruction 
would be secured if salt and lime could be brought into im- 
mediate contact with them, but this cannot be ensured over 
any considerable area by top-dressings. It is impracticable 
artificially to convert wet suspicious meadows into salt marshes. 
Confined to the natural salt marshes, even during these recent 
rot-producing years, sheep have certainly continued sound. 
Salt water is fatal to the earlier forms of fluke life. On a small 
scale the fact may be usefully applied. Salt and lime dressings, 
repeated two or three times at intervals of a week, may be 
distributed on limited isolated, wet, springy or green spots 
— the suspected breeding-places of the flukes, and homes of 
the infested slugs. When the parasites and their molluscan 
hosts are more widespread, as, unfortunately, they now are over 
thousands of moist meadows, obviously the only certain preven- 
tion of rot is to keep the flocks out of such meadows, and confine 
them on perfectly dry pastures and on arable land on which 
tainted sheep have not ranged. 
In conclusion, I have to thank the various gentlemen who, 
with much courtesy and trouble, have furnished me with 
information for the preceding report. 
