60 
A SUMMARY ACCOUNT OF THE DISEASES OF 
THE HOOFS OF SHEEP. 
PROFESSOR STONIG has published the result of his re¬ 
searches into the nature of these foot-maladies, including 
their symptoms, diagnostics, causes, and treatment. He makes 
three divisions of them :—sporadic, epizootic, and contagi¬ 
ous diseases. The sporadic affections have their origin in ex¬ 
ternal injury, from any pointed or gritty substance that may 
penetrate the horn; or else in excessive growth of hoof, which 
by inflection at the toe interferes with progression. In these 
cases, the removal of the cause is in general all that is requir¬ 
ed : should inflammation however have been excited, the foot 
may be immersed in cold water or snow, or the horn cut away 
until the blood comes ; which is to be suffered to stream in suf¬ 
ficient quantity, and the wound afterwards bound up with tar. 
In many flocks, every year, in the autumnal, winter, and 
spring seasons, several of the sheep become lame; an evil as- 
cribable to the corrosive effects of exposure of the hopf to the 
constant moisture and muck of their habitations. Hoofs dry 
by nature, such as the merinos have, suffer most from this en¬ 
zootic disease. The treatment consists in avoiding the exist¬ 
ing causes as much as possible, and in paring the hoofs and 
afterwards sprinkling powdered blue vitriol upon the raw parts. 
Another malady is the festered cleft—-characterized by inflam¬ 
mation of the soft parts of the extremity of the foot, and ac¬ 
companied by vesicular and suppurative eruptions. It is also 
attended with fever, and may be regarded as epizootic. In 
most cases this issue proves its own cure; though lotions of 
salt and water, and applications of tar assist the recovery. 
It is often difficult to distinguish this last disease from a con¬ 
tagious affection, in some stages resembling it, named rot. 
This is a disease that appears to have been unknown in Germany 
prior to the introduction of merino sheep. It is decidedly con¬ 
tagious, and so in the true sense of the word—requiring imme¬ 
diate contact. The most approved remedies for it, externally 
applied, are—blue vitriol in powder, sulphuric acid mixed with 
oil of turpentine, diluted sulphuric acid, distilled vinegar, oil of 
turpentine, oegyptiacum. Any of these may prove serviceable 
after the hoof has undergone the necessary paring; but a 
compound from which the author has seen the happiest eftbcts, 
is a mixture of two parts of tar and one of oil of turpentine, 
with one part of muriatic acid and four parts of finely powder¬ 
ed blue vitriol. The mode of preparing it, is to put the tar into 
a wooden or earthen vessel, add the turpentine slowly, stirring 
the mixture all the while, then the muriatic acidy and lastly the 
