ROT IN SHEEP. 
353 
every practical man knows, put sheep with impunity upon 
water-meadow's during the winter months, or in the early 
part of the spring; but if you water your meadows in the 
month of May, and then get a luxuriant herbage springing 
up afterwards, and put the sheep on this, you are almost cer¬ 
tain to rot them. As you approach midsummer, the danger 
increases; and as you approach the winter, it decreases. This 
single circumstance shows that, when there is moisture and 
heat combined, the cause of rot is brought into operation. I 
have already spoken of the great losses that are now occur¬ 
ring amongst sheep from the disease. 
When were the sheep first affected with rot that we are 
now losing? I answ r er, last midsummer and forwards 
towards the autumn. That is the time to w ? hich you have to 
look. The cause was received then; the development has 
been going on in the flukes since that time. They have now 
attained their full size, and they are producing mischief in 
anaemiating the sheep. When we talk about curing rot, w r e 
must rather talk about taking cognizance, if possible, of the 
early existence of the disease. Then is the time to bring 
into operation certain causes w T hich will prevent the malady. 
I have here, for the inspection of the members, some early 
developed flukes, the only young ones I have been able to 
meet with. I have had them by me seven or eight years. 
They were taken out of a young sheep—and it is an ex¬ 
ceedingly interesting fact, because it bears out what I have 
said—in which there w 7 as not one large or fully developed 
fluke, and consequently there was not a single ovum to be 
met with in the biliary ducts. They are simply the youngest 
form of the fluke development from out of the infusorial 
creatures to which I have before referred, that have found 
their way into these ducts. They were sent me by an amateur 
pupil of the Veterinary College, from Redgrave, in Suffolk. 
They w 7 ere taken by him, in September, 1853, from some 
lambs w 7 hich had come on the farm six weeks before. It 
w 7 as a marshy farm, and the lambs were placed literally 
upon fen-land, as it is called. 
Having explained, though not so much at length as I 
should wish to have done, w r hat I believe to be the true 
explanation of this disease, I must pass on to make some 
more common-place observations w r ith regard to the means 
which we have at our disposal for the first ascertaining of 
the existence of the malady, with a view of putting into 
requisition the means which will effect its cure or prevention. 
[To be continued'.) 
