545 
ROT IN SHEEP. 
seized with the rot. Their carcasses are opened, and we discover 
the disorganizations already described. What fiist natuially 
presents itself to our minds as the cause of death ? In the sheep- 
cote they were healthy and strong all the functions were P er “ 
fectly executed—the muscles were firm, solid, because the food 
was good. In the marsh the grass contained nothing but water. 
Effusion in the abdomen, the thorax, and the cellular tissue was 
the consequence. 
The solids derive their nourishment from the fluids, there 
can be no doubt of that: but if these aliments contain litule 01 
no nutritive matter, the solids will suffer; and the evil will inciease 
until the disease of which we are treating is pioduced. Marshy 
herbs are swallowed—the digestive organs are unable to extract 
from them anything but water; that water mingled with some of 
the products of the secretions, is absorbed by the veins, 01 by the 
chyliferous vessels, or by both. The thoracic duct cat lies the 
new chyle into the circulation—the blood is formed fiom it, 
and derives from it the materials of its composition. This 
unnaturally fluid chyle, can it furnish the fibrine? can it contain 
the necessary elements for the formation of good blood ? This 
blood, driven by the heart to every part of the fiame, can it 
carry life to all the organs, tissues, viscera ? and these organs, 
tissues, viscera, can they receive the principles necessary for 
their maintenance if the blood is so aqueous and without fibiine, 
as in the rotted sheep ? The capability of excitation must be in 
proportion to the degree of nourishment. 
The circulating living principle of Hunter is here nothing 
but water—the body is soaked with it—it transudes everywhere 
—the muscles are soft, discoloured, humid the cellulai tissue 
is infiltrated—the animal dies, because the matter intioduced 
into the digestive passages does not furnish the system with its 
essential aliment. All this seems to us perfectly rational. It 
has been said that the fluids can be diseased only secondarily 
by means of the changes which certain organs have under¬ 
gone : thus the stomach and intestines, reacting upon the 
substances which they contain, become irritated and inflamed ; 
—but irritation and inflammation give some signs of their 
existence, and, ordinarily, leave traces behind them, when the 
animal ceases to live. We meet with nothing of this kind 
in animals affected with the rot; on the contrary, inflamma¬ 
tion is rare, and is established with difficulty in an animal that 
contains little more than four pounds of blood. If the prin¬ 
ciple contended for by the physiological school were ad¬ 
mitted, we should ask how an inflammation once established 
disappears by the mere change ol food ; for that is not an hypo- 
