SMALLPOX AMONG SHEEP IN WILTSHIRE. 
729 
of the disease by the owner of the animals, we have pretty 
well exhausted our stock of surmises for its introduction, 
without making much progress towards a satisfactory ex¬ 
planation of the circumstance. The part of Wiltshire where 
the malady made its appearance is peculiar for its isolated 
position. No foreign sheep travel its roads, nor have any 
been known to be purchased by the butchers of the neigh¬ 
bourhood. The flock, consisting of 992 ewes, 9 rams, and 
710 lambs, in which the disease originally manifested itself, 
has had no fresh animals, male or female, introduced into 
it, nor has it been commingled in any way with other persons’ 
sheep.” 
The possibility of a spontaneous origin of the disease would 
also seem to be indicated by a subsequent outbreak in a flock 
at some little distance from Mr. Parry’s farm. Up to August 
the 18th the disease had been entirely confined to Mr. Parry’s 
flocks, but on that day a flock of 400 fat wethers belonging 
to a Mr. Harding, of Etchilhampton, showed signs of in¬ 
fection. The spot where the sheep were folded was about a 
mile and a half distant from Mr. Parry’s farm, and in the in¬ 
termediate space were other farms occupied by flocks belonging 
to different proprietors, and every care had been taken to 
prevent either direct or mediate communication with Mr. 
Parry’s flocks ; as an additional precaution, the sheep had 
been driven to the part of Mr. Harding’s farm most distant 
from Mr. Parry’s. The flocks on the intermediate farms still, 
we believe, remain unaffected. 
Since the irruption of the malady among Mr. Harding’s 
sheep the disease has appeared in other flocks in the same 
district, and also in Berkshire. But in the later instances of 
the outbreak there is too good reason to believe that the 
disease was communicated to the healthier flocks by lambs 
or sheep purchased from flocks which were infected, but 
which up to the time of sale had not shown any indications of 
the disease. 
Obscure as the first origin of this outbreak may at present 
appear, a little consideration will, however, show that the 
probability of the disease having been communicated is by no 
means exhausted. The fact of the nature of the malady 
ravaging Mr. Parry’s flocks not being recognised until Pro¬ 
fessor Simonds had been consulted, throws the gravest doubts 
on the assumption of the disappearance of smallpox among 
our flocks since 1853, or, at least, in more recent years. The 
first introduction and ravages of smallpox among the flocks 
of this kingdom must have fallen under the immediate ob¬ 
servation of very many of our present sheep-farmers; the 
disease, moreover, is one of the most glaring character, and 
