PROFESSOR SIMONDS* LECTURE. 
513 
run; the large quantity of watery matter in the food acting as a 
direct excitement to the abnormal functions of the digestive organs. 
Early disturbance of the liver led to an accumulation of fat, and, 
consequently, an animal being “touched with the rot” thrived 
much more than usual. This reminded the lecturer that the cele- 
brated Bakewell was said to be in the habit of placing his sheep 
on land notorious for rotting them, in order to prevent other people 
from getting his stock, and likewise to bring them earlier to market 
for the butcher. 
The CHAIRMAN. — He would keep them on water meadows. 
Professor SlMONDS assented. He then observed that the sub- 
ject was one of considerable importance. They would in a day or 
two visit the water meadows of Sir Thomas Acland and Mr. 
Turner, and these gentlemen he had no doubt knew as well as he 
(the lecturer) that sheep placed in water meadows, after irrigation 
at this period of the year, always had a tendency to rot. It was 
important to know when water should be thrown on pastures, the 
proper season being during the winter and spring months. Re- 
ferring again to the diseases of the liver, he observed that the bile 
in rot, in consequence of the derangement of the liver being con- 
tinued, lost its property of converting the chymous mass into 
nutritious matter, and the animal fell away in condition. Every 
part of the system was now supplied with impure blood, for they 
might as well expect pure water from a poisoned fountain as pure 
blood when the secretion of the bile was unhealthy. This state 
of the liver and the system was associated with the existence of 
parasites of a particular kind ( distoma hepaticum). Some persons 
supposed that these parasites, which from their particular form were 
called flukes, were the cause of the rot. He regarded them as the 
effect ; yet it was to be remembered that they multiplied so rapidly, 
that they became the cause of further diseased action Sheep in 
the earlier stages of the affection, before their biliary ducts became 
filled with flukes, may be restored; but, when the parasites existed 
in abundance, there was no chance of the animals’ recovery. Those 
persons who supposed flukes to be the cause of rot had, perhaps, 
some reason for that opinion. Flukes are oviparous; their ova 
mingle with the biliary secretion, and thus find their way out of 
the intestinal canal unto the land ; as in the feculent matter of 
rotten sheep may be found millions of flukes. A Mr. King, of 
Bath, had unhesitatingly given it as his opinion that, flukes were 
the cause of the rot; believing that, if sheep were pastured on 
land where their ova existed, they would be taken up with the 
food, enter into the ramifications of the biliary ducts, and thus con- 
taminate the whole of the liver. There appeared some ground for 
this assertion, because very little indeed was known with refer- 
vol. xxiii. 3 z 
