VENERINARY JURISPEUDENCE. 
655 
wasting arising from diseased liver. He did not think the sheep would 
be likely to pick up the germs in the ditches and hedges by the road¬ 
side. A road with herbage along the side would be a different thing. 
Before sheep could pick them up they must undergo a certain process 
of washing, and be scattered about amongst the grass. The fluke 
disease had been very general. If 50 or 100 sheep were taken from a 
flock of say double the number, he should not expect to find one part 
sound and the other portion diseased. 
Re-examined. —A good many causes retarded or promoted the develop¬ 
ment of the disease when the germ was in the animal. 
Mr. William Ray, M.R.C.V.S., Warminster, said he received a sheep’s 
liver from Mr. Jones on the 10th April. It was in a very far advanced 
stage of the disease. The biliary ducts contained numerous flukes 
fully developed. The coats of the ducts were much thickened and 
enlarged. The disease had existed five or six months. On the 12th 
April Mr. James and he examined a liver, and he agreed with what Mr. 
James had said. On the 22nd April a ewe was killed, and he examined 
it in company with Mr. James, and he agreed with what Mr. James had 
said with regard to it also. He had seen part of defendant’s land ; it 
was heavy and marshy, and likely to bane sheep. 
Cross-examined. —All the pastures he saw were marshy, and the fallow 
ground adjoining was very heavy. The sheep were a mile or so otF. 
There was no one to show him where the land was that the sheep were 
on last winter. Some women in some cottages told him to whom the 
land belonged. Mr. Jones and Mr. Harding were with him. 
Mr. Thomas Dylce Broad , M.H.C.V.S., Bath, said he had examined 
twenty-three of the sheep alive, and he had one killed on the 22nd June. 
He agreed with the previous evidence. He knew the road over which 
the sheep were driven ; it was an unlikely place for sheep to become 
baned. 
By Mr. Collins. —It was difficult to know the exact time when germs 
were taken into the stomach. He never knew a case in which sheep had 
become affected after October, though he had had much experience in 
fluke disease. They began to take the disease in May, June, or July. 
He believed they might be bred in the animal, the same as worms in many 
other animals. The bile in the sheep was the natural food of the fluke. 
Re-examined. —He had had fifty years experience in his profession. 
Mr. Thomas Aubrey , M.R.C.V.S., Salisbury, saw twenty-two or twenty- 
three of the sheep about the 23rd June. They were in a very emaciated 
condition ; nothing but skin and bone. They were suffering from rot. 
He made an independent post-mortem examination, and found the disease 
in a very bad stage. The germs must have been in the creature many 
months. 
His Lordship.— What is the longest time of incubation ?—That depends 
on the treatment they are subject to. I have known sheep live on two 
years and breed two lambs. 
Mr. Collins asked how he knew they were baned at that time ? but the 
question was not answered. 
Mr. Thomas King Harding , farmer, of Maiden Bradley, said that on the 
6th or 7th of this month he went to defendant’s farm with plaintiff and 
another gentleman. They examined two pieces of pasture land. -Ihey 
were very flat, and very wet he should say in winter, and such Lmd as 
he should be very sorry to have had sheep on during last season. 
Mr. Collins complained that an attempt had been made to show that 
plaintiff had purposely kept out of the way, but this was not so, for when 
he returned home about an hour later he sought for the parties all over 
