588 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
SMALLPOX IN SHEEP. 
We have hitherto refrained from giving publicity to a 
most malignant and fatal disease which has broken out, 
and is still continuing its ravages in one of the largest flocks 
in the neighbourhood of Devizes, because we were unwilling 
to create unnecessary alarm, and were in hope that the 
frightful visitation might have been arrested, and the disease 
got under, without damaging the reputation of what has for 
the last fifty years been regarded as one of the most healthy 
flocks upon the Beckhampton dowrns. 
The matter, however, has become so generally knowm in 
this immediate district, and the disease has now so com¬ 
pletely impregnated the whole flock, that, for the sake of 
flockmasters generally, it seems desirable that some short 
notice of the nature of the attack, and the means which are 
being taken to subdue it, should no longer be withheld from 
publication. 
It is now about five weeks ago that Mr. Joseph Parry, of 
Allington, was riding alongside one of his folds, containing 
about 300 two-year-old ewes, when he observed one of the 
ew r es lying by the hurdles. The poor animal looked in a 
pitiable condition, soon breathed its last, and was put out of 
the way, and for the time nothing more was thought of the 
occurrence. But in a day or two after other sheep in the 
same flock showed symptoms of illness; exhibiting great 
internal suffering, loss of appetite, heaviness and indisposi¬ 
tion to move, and general prostration. The two-year-old 
ewes had, up to this time, been kept with their lambs; but 
thinking it better to separate them, the latter were now 
removed and put with other lambs upon the farm, the former 
being turned amongst the general breeding flock—making 
altogether 1000 ewes and 700 Iambs. 
The nature of the attack from which the tw T o-year-old 
ewes were suffering was then little dreamt of; but it soon 
became unmistakably apparent that, whatever it was, it was 
eminently contagious, for in the course of a fortnight the 
same symptoms began to show themselves among the elder 
ewes and among the lambs, and for days in succession as 
many as twenty and thirty of the ew r es died in the most loath¬ 
some state of disease—their bodies covered with pustules, and 
