REPORTS ON THE INFLUENZA 
546 
required, as in this malady ; but the invalid sheep require a better 
and more nourishing diet, when in a weak and languid state, 
than when in the enjoyment of perfect health. 
When the inflammatory symptoms are not very severe, topical 
bleeding, by opening a vein as near the seat of inflammation as 
possible, or by counter-irritants, may be recommended to sub- 
due the inflammatory action ; but as in this epidemic catarrh 
the lungs and bronchiae are very liable to be affected sooner or 
later, according to the idiosyncrasy of the animals, it would be 
advisable, by all means, closely to watch the progress of the 
disease, and either resort to active treatment by the general 
abstraction of blood from the jugular vein, when the inflammatory 
symptoms run high, or to adopt milder measures in order to sub- 
due the disease when it assumes a more gentle form. 
It has happened, that many sheep have been treated by 
bleeding, &c., and yet the mortality was very great ; but on 
careful inquiry it appeared that the animals were not treated until 
they reached the advanced or third stage, when all remedies 
were useless. As I have before observed, many localities, although 
good for healthy sheep, are yet too chilly for animals suffering 
from an epidemic attended with such languor, debility, fever, and 
depression of the vital powers, as this ; consequently organic 
disease rapidly takes place, and speedily terminates in death. The 
sick sheep ought to be prevented from drinking cold water: with 
green food they would not require so much water as when feeding 
upon drier herbage. When water is given to the sick or diseased 
sheep, it should be tepid. 
At Bureong, in the Lachlan, when the sheep were attacked by 
this epidemic, they were bled from the vein under the eye, in the 
ears, &c., and had lukewarm salt and water administered in- 
ternally; but the whole treated in this manner died. Bleeding 
from the jugular vein was next resorted to, and Glauber’s and 
Epsom salts, with warm gruel, were administered internally. 
Many of the affected sheep then recovered ; but I could not ascer- 
tain whether they had been treated in the first stage of the 
disease. Tobacco water was also tried as an internal remedy ; 
but the whole of the sheep died to whom it was administered. 
In a few instances, some sheep proprietors injected spirits of 
turpentine up the nostrils of sheep affected by this disease ; the 
result of which was, as might have been expected, immediate 
death. Blisters applied over the nostrils proved equally useless, 
because a local remedy was of little avail when the disease affected 
the whole constitution. 
Lambs of a few days or a fortnight old were also attacked by 
the epidemic, and, on dissection, the same appearances presented 
