ROT IN SHEEP. 
539 
chvliferous ones were distended. In the three first stomachs 
were remains of green food ; the fourth stomach and the small 
intestines were empty: the mucous membrane of the di¬ 
gestive passages was pale and humid ; but in three carcasses 
there was intense redness of a small portion of the villous tunic 
of the rectum. The blood in the large vessels was fluid ; it 
did not coagulate; it contained a great quantity of serum, and very 
little fibrine: there was a sensible diminution of the colouring 
matter, and the general aspect of the blood was watery. The 
thoracic cavity was filled with transparent fluid—there was also 
hydropericarditis : the lungs were sound, but pale and collapsed; 
they were rarely tuberculous, and two of them contained hydatids. 
The heart was soft and pale; the left cavities were empty : in 
the right cavities was fluid blood of a feeble black tint; and the 
bronchial passages were filled with spume. In the cranium 
there was effusion of transparent fluid in greater or less quanti¬ 
ties, and the lateral ventricles were often filled with it. The 
spinal canal was not examined. 
The Arabs believe that the disease will be mortal when a tu¬ 
mour forms under the throat; but in the early stage of the disease 
they think it possible to arrest its progress by removing the ex¬ 
citing causes. Adult sheep have greater chance of escaping than 
very young or old animals. If they are left in the places in which 
the malady has begun to appear, few sheep escape its fatal in¬ 
fluence. If the infected animals cough, or have diarrhoea, the 
termination of the complaint is hastened, and the patients die in 
about twenty-five or thirty days. 
For many years the government of Egypt has occupied itself 
in breeding silkworms, and a great number of establishments 
have sprung up in which a beautiful and very fine silk has been 
produced, and which has been sold at a great price. At dif¬ 
ferent times one or the other of us has often visited these manu¬ 
factories, and has followed the silkworm through all its trans¬ 
migrations, and examined the food by which this valuable 
insect was supported, and studied the influence of that food at 
different periods of the life of the worm, and the diseases to 
which the worm was ordinarily exposed ; and we are assured that 
in Egypt, and particularly in the Delta, the rot commits dreadful 
ravages among them, and destroys a very great number. 
The worm acquires a premature bulk—it feels soft when touched, 
it ceases to be lively, it becomes transparent, gorged with fluid, 
it eats with difficulty, and soon dies. These establishments are 
conducted by Syrians, who immediately recognize the disease. 
They attribute it to food of too watery a nature, and to the use 
