SHEEP DISEASES : CAUSES, NATURE AND PREVENTION. 205 
cases, involving the loss of power in the extremities, and the in¬ 
jury to the cranial nerves, as seen in the lesions of the left eye 
and in the facial palsy. 
The treatment which was suggested and adhered to by Dr. 
Ashe, has thus far authorized a confident expectation of ultimate 
recovery. This treatment has consisted in counter irritation over 
the poll and the loins, and nervous stimulants in small and re¬ 
peated doses, with alteratives and diuretics. The galvanic cur¬ 
rent was also suggested, in case the paralytic symptoms should 
prove persistent, but no occasion for resorting to its application 
seemed to arise. 
SHEEP DISEASES: THEIR CAUSES, NATURE AND PREVENTION * 
By Thomas Walley, M.R.C.V.S. 
In considering this subject I shall, as far as is possible, avoid 
technicalities and shall compress my subject into as limited a 
space as is compatible with its intelligent consideration. 
Beginning then at the foundation, I shall deal with the physi¬ 
ology of cinimal life so far as it has to do with the production 
and prevention of disease. 
Th& blood is the life^ and the source of the blood is the alimen¬ 
tary matter we ingest; and if the food does not contain all the 
elements—and the proportion of elements too—necessary to the 
formation of the vital fluid, life cannot be maintained. 
Recognizing this important, this vital fact, 1 shall, in the first 
place, endeavor to make plain the nature of this source and sup¬ 
porter of life; and, in the second, how its vitality is to be pre¬ 
served. 
The blood is not a formed, it is a formative, tissue; it is not a 
simple fluid, but a highly complex one, and like all complex mat¬ 
ter, is very susceptible to the action of surrounding influences. 
It is made up of fluids and solids which bear a definite proportion 
to each other, and any departure, past moderate limits, from this 
correlation inevitably produces grave consequences. 
* Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. 
