EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
247 
the flock owner in the present emergency does not require 
to be furnished with scientific treatises on the development 
of the Distoma hepaticum , but rather with a plain state¬ 
ment of the means which he should adopt to cure the dis¬ 
ease from which his sheep are dying. And we admit that 
it is not consolatory to a man who has tumbled into a 
furnace to have to listen to a critical discussion of the cir¬ 
cumstances under which heat is generated, and the precise 
effects of an elevation of temperature upon organic sub¬ 
stances ; but unhappily in reference to the cure of rot, there 
is little to be said and not much to be done, while very 
much may be effected in regard to its prevention by flock 
masters who have taken the trouble to comprehend the 
chief facts in the history of the disease. 
An outbreak of cattle plague in a single dairy would set the 
agricultural world in arms. The introduction of sheep-pox into 
a single district would alarm every sheep farmer in the land, 
and if the present conditions in regard to the importation of 
foreign animals were such as to make the introduction of 
either disease almost a matter of certainty, the agricultural 
community would make itself heard in a manner which it 
would be impossible to misunderstand or disregard ; but 
while everybody who knows anything of the conditions 
under which sheep rot is developed, was aware that its 
extensive prevalence in the near future, was quite inevit¬ 
able, those most concerned remained apparently indif¬ 
ferent in spite of warnings, constantly repeated in agricul¬ 
tural and veterinary journals, until the event actually 
happened, and prevention became impossible, and the result 
is the loss of thousands of sheep, which might have been 
saved by a moderate allowance of dry food, a proper quan¬ 
tity of salt, and reasonable care in keeping them from the 
most dangerous grounds in the most dangerous part of the 
year. The necessity for extra caution in regard to sanitary 
conditions could in no way be more effectually asserted 
than by bringing the farmer face to face with the sum total 
of the losses which have happened in the last six months, from 
a disease the effects of which would have been considerably 
ameliorated by the adoption of proper precautions, 
