210 SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
tions of diet, to be presently mentioned, were attempted—there 
was at parturition a very serious loss of both ewes and lambs. 
The causes of death in the latter were—1st. This arthritic dis¬ 
ease we have been considering in conjunction with purulent 
omphalitis. 2nd. Congestive fever, with occasionally local blood 
extravasations. In the former it was almost invariably ansemia, 
with structural disease of the liver and an occasional outbreak of 
parturient fever. 
After long observation, much inquiry, and thought, I felt 
satisfied that the chief cause of the excessive fatality amongst the 
lambs was mainly to be attributed to the condition of the ewes, 
and that this again was largely influenced by their dietary during 
gestation. Acting upon this conviction means were taken, in late 
autumn, to have the pastures on which the ewes were chiefly to 
be kept during the winter “ run up,” i. e . to have the grass well 
eaten down; on this the ewes were placed in rather large num¬ 
bers, so that the plants would have little chance of attaining to 
any luxuriance while they remained there. On this grass, how¬ 
ever, the ewes were dependent only to a very moderate extent for 
their support. This was supplied to them chiefly by a mixture 
of hay and oat straw cut together, and, as circumstances seemed 
to indicate, a proportion of some cake and other artificial food. 
As parturition approached, a moderate supply of turnips was 
allowed, which was continued for some time when with their 
lambs in young grass. When these conditions were followed out 
with anything like faithfulness, the state of matters at parturition 
was very much more satisfactory than under the usual routine. 
The number of cases of arthritic disease was reduced to a 
minimum, while the death-rate of the ewes could be looked upon 
without positive alarm. Once when the lambing season had 
been got through with remarkably little loss amongst both ewes 
and lambs, a return was made next winter to the usual full 
feeding on winter-grown grasses with no artificial food. This 
was succeeded by a spring showing an unprecedentedly high death- 
rate amongst both lambs and ewes. The causes of this loss were 
the same they had ever been when the same treatment had been 
pursued. It is not, however, entirely through the medium of the 
breeding and pregnant animal that faulty dietary seems to operate 
in the production of defective and ill-elaborated tissue-formation 
in the young. There seems good reasons for believing that a like 
train of influences are imparted to our male stock animals by 
want of a correct appreciation of the dietetic conditions necessary 
for the development and maintenance of perfectly healthy animal 
existence. 
There can be little doubt that the best of our male stock 
animals, particularly those of the varieties in the several classes 
