556 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 
similar results to those we find in the human subject, viz., pocked 
faces, and a cicatrised surface of skin. 
Fatality op Sheep-Pox. 
The fatality of the natural disease in a flock of sheep when un- 
checked, except by the removal of infected sheep, and by observing a 
careful system of management towards them, will not unfrequenfly 
reach as high a figure as 50 or 00 per cent. Where circuin stances 
have been unfavourable I have known the disease to destroy 90 per 
cent. ; and if we take animals originally the most healthy, and place 
them under the most favourable circumstances with regard to weather, 
management, medical treatment, and diet, it very rarely falls below 
25 per cent. 
Eejiedial Treatment. 
In speaking of the means at our disposal to lessen the fatality of the 
disease, and to secure animals against a natural outbreak of the affec- 
tion, two or three things offer themselves to our consideration. One 
course is the early separation or segregation of the animals. This 
plan has been a good deal too much extolled by individuals who pos- 
sessed only a limited experience of the affection. I readily admit its 
value, nobody perhaps more so ; but I say that we must not depend 
exclusively and entirely upon it, for in practice we find that the 
disease may break out in a flock consisting of 800, 1000, or 1200 
sheep, as it did in the breeding-flock of Mr. Parry, Mr. Neatc, and 
other gentlemen in Wiltshire. No man can tell the hour at which 
the eruption will come out ; but from that very moment, if not 
before, the disease is infectious. An examination, or at any rate a 
close inspection of every individual sheep two or three times a day, 
is therefore necessary. But even more than this is essential, in order 
to make sure that no small-pox sheep is left in the flock. As the 
disease frequently assumes a benign character, there may be benign 
cases not easily recognised in the flock, and though these will not 
in themselves be dangerous, yet an animal taking the disease from 
these may have a severe instead of a benign attack. Therefore, these 
benign cases must be looked after very closely ; for as the animals, 
especially early in the disease, do not lop their cars, nor drop their 
heads, nor refuse food, it is possible they may bo left in the flock and 
do irreparable mischief. Practically, then, every sheep should be 
caught each day and turned up, and its arm-pits and other parts 
examined to see whether it is affected with the disease. But who, 
1 ask, would like to incur the labour of thus examining 1200 sheep, 
and rely on the results of this search as his only safeguard? 
Suppose as a parallel case, that there were a public institution 
in this metropolis where there were three or four hundred children 
who have been neglected in early life, and have not been pro- 
tected against small-pox by vaccination, and two or three indi- 
viduals who became infected with small-pox were allowed to mingle 
with these children for an horn or two every day. I will further 
suppose that the surgeon of the establishment, knowing that these 
