116 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
frequent in some districts, and at present the disease both in 
cattle and sheep is unhappily becoming more prevalent; or 
more correctly we may say that we are now seeing the effects of 
previous infection. It takes some time for the ravages of the 
fluke to tell upon the system of the sheep, a longer period 
would certainly be required to produce the same effects on 
the hardier ox, so that it may be presumed, in every case 
among cattle, that the larvae of the fluke were taken into 
the system some months back. 
Naturally, under the circumstances referred to, stock- 
owners are asking what is to be done, and it has been 
suggested that the Veterinary Committee of the Royal 
Agricultural Society should do something in the emergency. 
We confess that we do not see exactly what any veterinary 
committee is to do in the way of combating a disease which 
is the outcome of a wet season. A hot, dry summer would 
stop the progress of rot; it would also help the farmer in 
various other ways ; but must we meekly accept the taunt 
that veterinary science can do nothing under the climatic 
conditions which are essential causes of the disease ? Most 
assuredly not. 
Curative measures have been tested extensively here and 
abroad, and the uniform result has been failure ; there are 
no known means of expelling the flukes from the bile ducts. 
Early removal of animals from the dangerous grounds—no 
easy matter when a whole district has been rained on till it has 
become a marsh—liberal diet, the free use of salt, and, in cer¬ 
tain cases, the internal use of some of the salts of iron, consti¬ 
tute the essentials of a rational plan of preventive treatment, 
which, to be successful, must be promptly applied with 
the object of aiding the animal to resist the attack of the 
parasites. We regret to be obliged to add that, in the 
cases of the majority of the animals which are now suffering, 
the time has passed when any plan of treatment could be 
employed with a reasonable hope of success. 
