1850. THE CULTIVATOR. 
361 
The Rot iu Sheep. 
The disease in sheep called rot , has long been 
formidable in Europe, and has, in some seasons, 
been the cause of great losses to the owners of sheep 
in our country. It is a disease, however, which is 
but little understood by the American sheep-owners 
generally,—so little, indeed, that it has often passed 
under another name, and the mischief which it oc¬ 
casioned has been, in some instances, attributed to 
causes which had no connection with the disease. 
In a lecture lately delivered before the Royal Agri¬ 
cultural Society, by Prof. Simonds, on the “struc¬ 
ture and diseases of the liver,” some observations 
were made which throw much light on the nature of 
the rot, the means for its prevention, &c. We think 
a portion of his remarks will be read with advan¬ 
tage. Eds. 
Prof. Simonds observed that no disease was pro¬ 
bably so much feared by the sheep-owner, as the 
rot, and with reason, for it was most destructive to 
his hopes. It was in common parlance looked on as 
incurable, and therefore it was all important to in¬ 
quire into the causes which gave rise to it. He 
need hardly tell them as practical men, that the pre¬ 
valence of the rot depended very much on the qual¬ 
ity and kind of food consumed by the animal. Some 
pastures were notorious for the rot in sheep; on 
other pastures, sheep, under all circumstances, in 
wet seasons or dry, were pastured with impunity. 
But as a broad principle, it may be laid down that 
an excess of moisture is prejudicial to the health of 
the animal. Sheep, by nature, are not only erratic 
animals, wandering over a large space of ground, 
but are inhabitants of arid districts. The skill of 
man has improved the breed, and he has naturalised 
them in moist and temperate climates, but, never¬ 
theless, circumstances will take place, which show 
that the animal has not changed its nature; a wet 
season oeeurs, the sheep are exposed to cold and 
moisture, and the rot spreads among the flocks to a 
fearful extent. The malady is not confined to Eng¬ 
land or to Europe, it is found in Asia and Africa, 
and occurs in Egypt on the rising of the waters of 
the Nile. These facts are valuable, because they 
show that the cause of disease is general and not 
local—that it was not caused by soil or tempera¬ 
ture, for it was found that animals in any tempera¬ 
ture became affected, and on any soil in certain 
seasons. 
A great deal had been written on the rot in sheep, 
which he could have wished had never been written. 
Many talented individuals had devoted their time to 
its investigation, endeavouring to find some one 
cause for it, as if it originated from one cause alone. 
But the facts he had or should allude to, would show 
that it arose from more than one cause. He had 
mentioned the facts with regard to the land some¬ 
times producing rot and sometimes not; but he 
would go a step further and ask this question—was 
there any particular period of the year when ani¬ 
mals were more subject to the attack? Undoubted¬ 
ly there was. This time of the year [July] was the 
most likely period; and if a large quantity of rain 
now fell, the combined heat and moisture would pro¬ 
duce a most luxuriant herbage. That herbage 
would be deficient in nutriment, and danger would 
be run, from the large quantity of moisture in the 
food acting as a direct excitement to the abnormal 
functions. When they had disturbance in the liver, 
and the accumulation of fat consequent on the ani¬ 
mals being touched with the rot, it flourished much 
more than usual; and this reminded the lecturer that 
he had heard that the celebrated Bakewell was in 
the habit of placing his sheep on land notorious for 
rotting them, in order to prevent other people from 
getting his stock, and to bring them earlier to mar¬ 
ket for the butcher. 
Referring again to the diseases of the liver, Prof. 
S. observed that the bile, in consequence of func¬ 
tional derangement lost its property of converting 
the chymous mass into nutritious matter, the ani¬ 
mal fell away. Every part of the system was sup¬ 
plied with impure blood, for they might as well ex¬ 
pect pure water from a poisoned fountain as pure 
blood when the secretion of the bile was interfered 
with. The liver being thus diseased, and the blood 
impure, they would have the existence of parasites 
of a particular kind. Some persons supposed that 
these parasites, which from their particular form 
were called flukes, were the cause of the rot. He 
regarded them as the effect—but although the effect, 
they multiplied so rapidly, that they became the 
cause of further disease. Animals in the earlier 
stages of the disease, before their biliary ducts be¬ 
came filled with flukes, may be restored, but when 
the flukes exist in abundance there was no chance 
of the animal’s recovery. Those parties who sup¬ 
posed flukes to be the cause of rot had perhaps some 
reason for that opinion. Flukes are oviparous, they 
are multiplied by means of eggs, which mingle with 
the biliary system, and find their way out of the in¬ 
testinal canal down on the land, for in the feculent 
matter of rotten sheep might be found millions of 
flukes. Mr. King, of Bath, unhesitatingly gave it 
as his opinion that flukes were the cause of the rot, 
believing that if sheep were pastured on land where 
their ova existed, they would be taken up with food, 
enter into the ramifications of the biliary ducts, and 
thus contaminate the whole of the liver. There 
was some reason for this assertion, because very 
little indeed was known with reference to the dura¬ 
tion of life in its latent form in the egg. How long 
the egg would remain without undergoing change, 
if not placed under circumstances favourable to the 
development of life was unknown. It was the same 
with the ova, so long as it remained in the pasture 
it underwent no change, but place them in the body 
of the animal, and subject them to the influence of 
heat, the latent life in the animalcule would be 
developed. There was, therefore, some show of 
reason for this assertion, for how long life might be 
maintained in a latent form was not known. Wheat 
had been locked up for hundreds of years—nay, for 
thousands—in Egyptian mummies, without under¬ 
going any change, and yet, when planted, had been 
found prolific. 
In conclusion, Prof. S. made some observations 
on the mode of treatment. He was not there to say 
that rot was in all cases a curative affection, but. at 
the same time he was fully aware that many cases 
of rot, that are now considered incurable, might be 
cured if sufficient attention was given to the animals. 
He mentioned one fact in illustration. About two 
years ago he purchased seven or eight sheep, all of 
them giving indisputable proof of rot in its advanced 
stages. He intended them for experiment and dis¬ 
section ; but as he did not require them all during 
the winter season, in which only he could dissect, 
he kept some during the summer. They were sup¬ 
plied with food of the most nutritious quality, and 
perfectly dry ; they were protected from every storm, 
being placed in a shed, and the result was, that 
without the application of any medicine, two of 
those rotten sheep quite recovered; and when he 
killed them, although he found that the liver had 
undergone organic lesion, they might have lived on 
for years. Rot, in its advanced stage, was a disease 
