of cold water, and given in three doses, morning, 
noon, and evening. On the third day, also, or 
even on the fourth, the clystering and the dosing 
with nitre should be renewed; and, if requisite, 
the bleeding may be repeated. But these reme- 
dies, which are the best that have been tried, 
wiil, in most cases, either totally fail, or at best 
but diminish the sheep’s pain and slightly prolong 
its life; and, in the few instances in which they 
succeed, the restored animals will be so exhaust- 
ed and feeble as to incur every hazard of dying 
from leanness and inanition in the course of the 
winter or of early spring. 
The proper treatment for braxy is obviously 
not cure but prevention; and this can be ju- 
diciously attempted only through acquaintance 
with the causes of the disease. Let us know 
what occasions braxy, and then shall we under- 
stand how the disease may be averted. One 
cause is boisterous, changeable weather, or rapid 
and great transitions from frosty to fresh, and 
from fresh to frosty. Another cause is drinking 
cold water, or plunging into a stream or pond, 
or being suddenly drenched with rain, or being 
chilled by a shower of snow, while the body is 
overheated. A third cause is winter-feeding on 
hill pastures with a steep northern exposure, 
and considerably overrun with ferns and brush- 
wood. A fourth cause is a sudden or consider- 
able change of pasture, or from a feeding on one 
class of herbage or aliments to feeding on ano- 
ther and considerably different class. <A fifth 
cause is the eating of very succulent grass which 
is loaded with hoar-frost ; and so powerful is this 
cause, that a night of hoar-frost, particularly 
about the end of autumn and beginning of win- 
ter, is very frequently followed on the next day, 
or within three days, by very numerous and fatal 
cases of braxy. A sixth and most virulent cause 
is the eating of hard, unwholesome, or indigesti- 
ble substances; and this cause operates partly in 
connexion with culpable neglect of the proper 
care of pastures, partly in connexion with inju- 
diciousness in the kind or manner of transitions 
from pasture to pasture in the progress of the 
seasons; and chief of all in connexion with the 
want of stells, turnip-feeding, or other appliances 
to prevent or lessen the entire dependence of the 
flock upon the herbage of the hills during the 
snows of winter. “When a deep snow lies long 
on the ground,” remarks Mr. W. Hogg, “the 
hunger of the poor creature becomes excessive, 
and it catches at everything which rises above 
the frozen surface, such as rotten spratt, rotten 
and half-withered fern, rock-fog, &c.; and, in 
Some situations, where it can get at the surface, 
of the earth, it bares away not only the sward, 
but a good deal of clay and sand. Such unnatu- 
ral and indigestible substances mixing and going 
into the stomach with the food, meet with no ob- 
struction, nor probably-give the animal any un- 
easiness, till they reach the last department 
of the stomach. There these crudities inflame 
BRAXY. 
515 
the tender coats of the reed, the animal sickens 
rapidly beyond all conception, and sometimes in 
the compass of an hour dies.” A seventh cause 
—the last which we shall name—consists in the 
improper treatment of lambs after weaning, and 
connects itself with the fact that hoggs or young 
sheep are the chief subjects of the disease, and 
that wether-hoggs are more liable to be attacked 
than ewe-hoggs. When weaned lambs are sepa- 
rated from the older sheep, and placed in flocks, 
or on pastures by themselves, they become im- 
paired in their instincts, and are far less able 
than they would otherwise be to discern between 
wholesome and unwholesome herbage. Wether- 
hoggs suffer great enfeeblement of constitution 
from the effects of castration ; and, if not nour- 
ished with the most tender food till they re-ac- 
quire constitutional energy, have not sufficient 
powers of digestion to resist the irritating action 
of many kinds of herbage which are easily digest- 
ible by strong and healthy sheep. Young sheep 
which are heated or exhausted by travelling or by 
any other fatigue, are impaired in stomach and 
have predisposition to disease until they reattain 
ease and composure. 
Hach of these causes suggests a correlative 
means of prevention. A shepherd ought to be 
well acquainted with the best prognostications | 
of weather, and to provide, by removals of the 
flock, and other means, as fully as the condition 
of the farm will permit, against the refrigerations | 
and excitements of great and sudden anticipated 
meteorological changes. 
used not to heat a flock by hard driving or other- 
wise during cold weather ; and, when any heat- 
ing has occurred, care should be exercised to 
prevent sudden cooling. Any pasture which has | 
a steep northern exposure, or which, in other 
respecis, is so situated as to make long retentions 
of cold and hoar-frost during the short days of 
winter, ought not to be depastured except during 
a steady continuance of open and comparatively 
genial weather. ‘Transitions from. pasture to 
pasture, especially at the close of autumn, ought | 
to be either of a gentle or of a gradual kind, and 
never so violent as from soft, saccharine, and suc- 
culent herbage to a hard and bristling sward of 
bents. On every evening, which indicates hoar- 
frost, or early in the morning succeeding a night 
in which hoar-frost has formed, the hoggs ought 
to be removed from their lairs to higher and 
open ground till the hoar-frost disappears. Se- 
dulous and skilful diligence ought to be practised 
to eradicate all ferns, heath, and brushwood from 
sheep-pastures, to sweeten the natural herbage 
by means of draining and other arts of georgy, 
and, occasionally, to alter and improve the quality 
of the aggregate growth of grasses by artificial 
sowings. The young of a flock, whenever cir- 
cumstances and sound economy will permit, ought 
to be pastured with the old; all weaned lambs 
ought to be protected from overdriving and ex- 
haustion; and all wether-hoggs ought to receive 
All care ought to be — 
