AMONG SHEEP IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 
f)4<> 
themselves as in the old sheep. To most of the lambs attacked 
the disease proved speedily fatal, as the same remedies could not 
be so readily administered to them as to the older sheep. 
It may be mentioned that Epsom salts, when administered in 
cold water to the sheep, proved injurious, but were beneficial 
when given in warm gruel. Several of Captain Rossi's flock 
were bled, and Epsom salts, combined with a little nitre, given 
cold ; but that mode of treatment was found to be injurious, the 
sheep dying two or three hours after it had been administered. 
The others were then treated with warm gruel and sugar, with a 
little common salt, after venesection, and this repeated for two 
or three days; this plan of treatment was found to be beneficial. 
Some sheep that had been bled were afterwards turned into a 
field of. green barley; the whole were purged, and, out of a hun- 
dred, seventy recovered from the disease. It ought to be men- 
tioned, that this sick flock was taken from the paddock, and 
placed during the night in the shearing shed, with clean straw. 
Another flock was effectively treated by bleeding in the 
jugular vein ; washing the nostrils clean from the discharge ; and 
administering warm gruel with common salt, sugar, and a little 
nitre internally ; the number of sheep treated in this manner was 
360, out of which 342 recovered. The flocks were at the same 
time overlooked twice daily, and any that exhibited symptoms of 
the disease were immediately removed, bled according to the 
strength of the sheep, and the internal remedy administered, as 
I have just mentioned. 
The Causes, Contagious Nature, &c. of the Disease. 
The causes of the present epidemic may be referred to two 
sources, an immediate or exciting, and a predisposing cause ; 
and in the epidemic, the subject of our present inquiry, as it 
appeared among the sheep, a strict analogy in every symptom, 
and in all its modifications, will be found as when the same 
disease w 7 as prevalent among the human race. 
The first or immediate cause is to be attributed to the state of 
the atmosphere ; and all causes which operate to the injury of the 
animal frame may be correctly divided into external and internal; 
although sometimes a combination of both may give rise to many 
maladies. The principal external agencies are the atmosphere, 
with all its varieties of temperature, moisture, and dryness, 
specific contagions, noxious exhalations, &c. The internal causes 
are peculiarity of constitution, hereditary predisposition, all 
circumstances which produce debility, or superabundance or 
deficiency of the various secretions, 8tc. ; and these latter may 
VOL. IX. 4 D 
