370 DISEASES OF THE HEART, LIVER, &C. IN LAMBS. 
weak, emaciated lambs suffering from scour — dysentery, I should 
say, by the appearance of the mucous membrane of the intestine — 
could possibly recover. They were little better than living 
skeletons. 
Adverting to the cause of these maladies, it will be instructive 
to note certain circumstances which may be fairly advanced as 
likely to have been conducive. The weather had been for a long 
period extremely wet and cold, and sometimes attended with frosty 
nights. The water-meadow was also, T am told, unusually wet. 
The lambs, at the same time, were living high — were, in fact, in a 
state of plethora. The wool retaining much of the moisture it was 
exposed to, and the temperature of the nights being low from con- 
tinual wet and frost, the skins of the animals became, in common 
parlance, chilled, and consequently prevented performing their 
customary secretions : there was, in short, a redundancy of blood 
thrown upon the motive power of the heart. It became over- 
exerted ; and, as over-exertion is a common cause of inflammation, 
so, in these lambs, the several varieties of disease, all attacking 
the same organ, the heart, are thus accounted for. And it is easy 
to be comprehended, if the heart could not dispose of the blood 
accumulating in its right side, that the brain and liver, by conse- 
quent accumulation of blood in the anterior and posterior cavse, 
backwards from the heart, the weight of the column in each cava 
offering a resistance to the propulsive power of the vessels of these 
organs, would sustain consequent venous congestion, and, possibly, 
inflammation. 
Had Mr. C. sent for proper professional attendance early, after 
losing some of the first cases, I have no doubt that, by judici- 
ous treatment, change of diet, bleeding, &c., the remainder would 
have been generally saved. It was by mefe accident, in fact, that 
I saw them at all. Mr. C. casually naming to me at market that 
he was losing many of his lambs, I suggested that, if his ill-luck 
continued, he had better let me see them. — Is it not lamentable that, 
in this age of onward progress and discovery, of scientific attain- 
ment, and, what is more to the point, of agricultural associations 
and improvement societies, the veterinary surgeon, excepting as 
regards his knowledge of the diseases of horses, and occasion- 
ally of cattle, is a shelved, inutile, forgotten piece of machinery 1 
not unfrequently learning, in an indirect manner, that, in other re- 
spects, he is not considered competent, or to possess the requisite 
knowledge ; often placed in competition, and unsuccessful compe- 
tition, too, with a mere man of receipts, nostrums, and unblushing 
effrontery. I do not believe that the evil rests with the veterinary 
body : it rather remains with the agriculturists. The charge or 
incompetency, so frequently made and reiterated, I am of opinion 
