CORYZA IN SHEEP. 
335 
CORYZA IN SHEEP. 
Coryza is a frequent disease in these animals, and arising 
usually from the same prevalent cause,—undue exposure to ex¬ 
treme cold in the winter. Matter will be seen running from the 
nostrils of three-fourths of the sheep in some flocks; it will an¬ 
noyingly plug up the narrow aperture of the nasal cavity, already 
filled by the singular developementof the sethmoid and turbinated 
bones. The animal will be arrested at every second or third bite 
at the herbage, and will snort violently, or stand with his head 
protruded, labouring for breath. Some have said that this is 
contagious : we have no proof that it is so ; it spreads through 
the flock, but all the sheep have been exposed to the same ex¬ 
citing cause. 
Periodical .—This will continue during the winter months. 
The health of the sheep seems to be little or not at all affected; it 
is a mere local affair; there is not even any enlargement of the 
submaxillary glands. Then, as in oxen, as soon as the warm 
breezes of spring are felt, the discharge rapidly diminishes, and, 
whether we are to attribute it to the genial change of the season, 
or to the medicinal power of the first flush of grass, in the course 
of a week or two, not a vestige of disease remains in nine-tenths 
of the flock. 
Fatal to some ,—but the tenth part. Why, that which reno¬ 
vates the others produces in this tenth a faint struggle against 
the foe; and then they become weaker and weaker; the inflam¬ 
mation spreads, and affects other passages: ulcers are in the 
nose; every sinus is full of pus; the larynx, the trachea, the 
bronchial tubes, are lined by a kind of false membrane, composed 
of mingled mucus and pus, and underneath that is a flush of 
inflammation of the intensest kind, with deep and spreading ul¬ 
ceration ; and the animal gets weaker still, and more and more 
emaciated, until pulmonary consumption is confirmed, and death 
closes the scene. 
Seldom treated hi) the Veterinarian .—Sheep are, even by intel¬ 
ligent farmers, scarcely deemed worthy of medical notice ; and 
except there is some epidemic or contagious disease, and where, 
in truth, the skill of the surgeon is of little or no avail, he is 
rarely consulted about them. On this account it is that the 
veterinary surgeon has seldom condescended to give to the dis¬ 
eases of sheep a moment’s consideration, and thus all parties have 
suffered. The veterinary surgeon has not had the credit of being 
competent to this branch of his profession, and the flocks of the 
farmer have been thinned by many a malady, for which the 
united labours of veterinarians would long ere this have dis~ 
