takes the specific name of the pubescent; but it 
is classed by some botanists as a brome-grass, 
and by others as a cocksfoot. It commonly has 
a height of about a foot, and blooms from June 
till August; but it does not possess much econo- 
mical interest. It was introduced to Britain 
about 28 years ago from the Continent. 
ROT. A disease of the liver and the adjacent 
viscera of sheep. It is one of the oldest and 
most destructive of sheep-maladies; and has 
been supposed to destroy more sheep than all other 
maladies put together. It is known to have 
made great ravages for centuries; and though 
now less virulent in some districts than formerly, 
it still destroys many hundred thousands of sheep 
almost every year. 
The rot has long been peculiarly rampant along 
the borders of the Nile in both Upper and Lower 
Egypt. “It assumes its most serious character,” 
we are told, “after heavy rains and extensive 
floods, and in wet countries covered with aquatic 
plants. It affects animals of different ages, and 
in all seasons. It appears every year in Egypt 
after the fall of the Nile; and it follows and 
keeps pace with the subsidence of the waters. 
In the superior parts of Upper Egypt, it com- 
mences about the end of July; nearer Cairo, in 
-August; in the environs of the capital, in Octo- 
ber and November; and in the Delta, during 
the months of December, January, and February. 
It is most obstinate, and continues longest, in the 
neighbourhood of the confluence of the waters. 
In Lower Egypt, it lasts about 120 or 130 days; 
and it disappears soonest, and is least fatal, when 
the rise of the Nile has not been considerable. 
Desolation and death accompany it wherever it 
passes. The Arabs say that this pest annually 
destroys 16,000 sheep in Egypt. Its victims usu- 
ally perish on the 25th, 30th, 35th, or 40th day 
after the apparent attack.” It commits great 
havoc also in America and in Continental Europe ; 
and it is far from being unknown even in the 
mild and comparatively dry and equable climate 
of Australia. In many a year, it has destroyed 
a million or so of sheep and lambs in Great Bri- 
tain ; and in 1830-31, it destroyed probably more 
than two millions,—carrying off some entire 
flocks, and so terribly reducing others as to bring 
_ their proprietors to bankruptcy. 
Rot appears to be a morbid condition of the 
liver, either preceded or accompanied or imme- 
diately followed by the presence of flukes, and 
producing enlargement, inflammation, and speck- 
ling of the liver itself, and great and diversified 
disturbance, change, and injury of the neigh- 
bouring viscera. It is believed by some veter- 
inarians to arise from the presence of flukes,— 
by others, from some one or more of several in- 
fluences in vegetation, in the soil, or in the sub- 
soil—and by others, from a diversity or compli- 
cation of causes. Flukes do not seem to be al- 
ways present in its earliest detectable stages; 
and though always numerous in its later stages, 
ROT. 
and probably great accelerators of its progress, 
they seem rather to be a consequence of the 
disease than a cause. See the article Fruxn, 
“The appearances exhibited in the sheep that 
has died of the rot,” says Clater, “are very sin- 
gular. There appears to be dropsy not only in 
the belly, but all over the animal. Whenever 
the knife is used, a yellow watery fluid runs out; 
and the consequence of the existence of this 
fluid everywhere is, that the muscles, and that 
which should be firm honest fat, are yielding and 
flabby and unwholesome. When the belly and 
chest are opened, the heart is pale and soft and 
flabby, and often to such a degree that we won- 
der how it could have continued to discharge its 
duty. The lungs are more or less gorged with 
blood; and there are a great many hard knotty 
points, of various sizes (tubercles), in them and 
on them, some of which have probably broken, 
and the lungs are full of ulcers; or when this is 
not the case, the lungs are studded with in- 
numerable little knotty points of a dark colour. 
The principal disease, however, is in the liver, 
which is much enlarged, often of double its na- 
tural size, broken down by the slightest touch, 
sometimes black from inflammation and con- 
gested blood, and at other times of an unhealthy 
lividness; but that which is most remarkable, 
which is characteristic of the disease, is, that its 
vessels are filled with flukes, which are swim- 
ming about in the bile in every duct, and bur- 
rowing into every part of the liver.” “In the 
quantity of tallow,” says Hogg, “there is not 
much decrease, not near so much as the extreme 
debility before death would seem to announce. 
That which enwraps the stomach and kidneys, 
as well as the fat dispersed through the system, 
has lost its suety qualities, and become a tough 
yellowish-coloured substance, altogether infusible 
by heat; in some more, in some less, but always 
a quantity of serum loose in the abdomen, in 
which the bowels float. Over the carcass are 
sundry yellowish spots, which are not unfrequent 
where fat should exist.” 
The earliest symptoms of rot are exceedingly 
obscure, and sometimes cannot be detected till 
the disease has gone far to establish itself ina 
flock. Every farmer, especially in the districts 
which are most liable to it, ought to examine 
the liver of every sheep he kills for the use of 
his family; for he may by this means discover 
the existence of rot upon his farm long before it 
can be revealed by external symptoms, and may 
in consequence adopt early and effective means 
to stop its progress. Whenever the liver of a 
slaughtered sheep is dappled with white spots or 
contains some flukes within its bile, no matter 
how generally sound the carcase may otherwise 
be or how few and small may be the flukes, the 
flock may be regarded as already under the in- 
cipient influence of rot, and ought with all 
speed to be subjected to the requisite regimen 
for checking the disease. The earliest outward 
