552 
REPORTS ON THE INFLUENZA 
or mild character. By such means alone can a successful ter- 
mination of the disease be expected. 
In sheep of very delicate constitutions, or high-bred sheep, 
a very moderate venesection — if even abstraction of blood can be 
resorted to at all with safety — must be adopted, and the animals 
carefully housed ; but the coarse-woolled or stronger constitu- 
tioned sheep may receive, of course, according to the severity of 
the symptoms, the treatment before recommended : but at the 
same time the sheep proprietor must observe the necessity of 
treating the sick sheep according to their strength, classing them 
in small flocks agreeably to the nature of the disease. Housing 
them at night during the prevalence of the epidemic may also 
be advised. I am, however, fully aware that all directions will be 
useless unless the shepherds will pay minute attention to their 
flocks, which in too many instances has not been done. I attri- 
bute much of the mortality to this neglect of the men in charge 
of the sheep. Care being taken to treat the animals in the first 
stage of the disease, I have n<f doubt, will reduce the rate of mor- 
tality from this epidemic — should it re-occur, which is not at all 
improbable — to a very low amount. 
Sydney, Oct . 3, 1835. 
Report by Andrew Gibson, Esq., J. P. 
Goulburn Plains , 25th Sept. 1835. 
Sir, — In compliance with the request of His Excellency the 
Governor, I do myself the honour to transmit to you the follow- 
ing observations which I have been enabled to make upon the 
disease lately prevalent among the sheep in Argyle and the ad- 
jacent counties. 
The first cases of the disease, I believe, appeared about the 
beginning of April 1835, in some flocks near Burrowa River, in 
the county of King. Its prevalence, however, does not seem to 
have been very extensive, and it has been comparatively confined 
to but a few out of the many flocks in these districts. For se- 
veral months it did not extend beyond the counties of King and 
Georgiana ; latterly it reached Argyle and the north-west parts 
of Murray ; but it has not been met with in any part of St. Vin- 
cent’s, nor in Camden. 
At the present date it has nearly subsided, with the exception 
perhaps of some occasional cases appearing among flocks formerly 
attacked, and in their lambs now dropping. 
The disease is ascertained to be a catarrh, and of that species 
called influenza ( catarrhus contagiosus), spreading epidemically. 
