439 
A VERY SERIOUS AND FATAL DISEASE AMONG 
SHEEP (TRAUMATIC ERYTHEMA). 
By Robert Read, VS., Crediton. 
The month of June is the principal one for the operation of 
sheep-shearing. In my locality it has been an unfavourable sea- 
son with the agriculturists. The number of shearlings that have 
died may be stated to be three out of every ten, or even more. 
The primary or first cause is a stab, snip, or abrasion with the 
shears, which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been 
deemed a mere trifle. Sadly has it been reversed this year. 
From about the third to the seventh day after the infliction of the 
injury, the part tumefies and indurates. The skin becomes red 
and tender, with an increase of heat, quickly followed by con- 
siderable serous infiltration into the cellular tissue, more especially 
confined to those parts in which the gravitation of the fluid is fa- 
voured, the abdomen, mammae, and extremities. The skin also 
has in some cases a yellow appearance, with petechial spots. The 
swelling is at first tense, but after a few days it indents on pres- 
sure with the finger. The cause of death in the affected animals 
has been its termination in gangrene. 
Various are the conjectures among farmers as to the cause. It 
is chiefly attributed by them to the hot and scorching weather 
during the month of June, in conjunction with the attack of the 
flies. Be the cause whatever it may, it has been an endemial 
epizootic in my vicinity. 
From observations I have made on the disease, I find there is 
no disposition in the wound to throw out lymph, in order to produce 
healing by the first act. The wound suppurates, with other symp- 
toms consecutively. The fault seems to be a want of fibrin in the 
blood, induced under circumstances concurrent with seasonal varia- 
tions. In the human subject we likewise find erysipelas to be occa- 
sionally an epidemic as well as endemic. The farmers or sheep- 
breeders do not remember the occurrence of such a disease before, 
therefore, by them, it is considered new. 
The most successful method of treatment consists in using 
very energetic depletive measures in the early commencement of 
the attack, such being attended with fever. These means will 
not, however, answer after the disease has existed a few days : 
you will then have to combat a want of necessary vitality in the 
swollen parts. Gangrene very soon supervenes ; in some cases 
in less than thirty-six hours after the commencement of the attack. 
