The rot in sheep : its nature, cause, treatment, and prevention : illustrated with engravings of the structure and development of the liver-fluke / by James Beart Simonds.

  • Simonds, James B. (James Beart), 1810-1904.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The rot in sheep : its nature, cause, treatment, and prevention : illustrated with engravings of the structure and development of the liver-fluke / by James Beart Simonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    then equalled by the ovine small-pox, a malady against which our sheep are protected in a great measure by our insular position. Rot is one of the most ancient diseases with which we are acquainted. The earliest writers on husbandry, as well as on the affections of cattle and sheep, make frequent mention of its ravages, and speak of a variety of causes as being in operation in producing it. Googe, Mascal], and Fitzherbert are among those of the 16th century; and Mr. Youatt, in his work* on 6 Sheep' remarks that even Hippocrates gave a very faithful account of the malady, “ erring only in considering the flukes as hydatids ; or rather his attention was confined to the hydatids, which are now frequently found in the liver of the sheep.” The disease would appear to belong to no particular country ; and perhaps there are few if any parts of the globe where sheep have been domesticated in which it does not occasionally prevail. A fact of this kind is of much importance, because it goes very far to negative many of the views which are entertained with regard to local causes of the affection. For example, some persons in the present day speak of the deleterious effects of certain grasses, such as the “ carnation-grass but this, like many other plants, similarly regarded, grows only in wet and undrained localities, and, consequently, its existence is but an indication of danger- ous pasturage. It may be affirmed that several of the supposed deleterious plants do not belong to Egypt nor to Australia, nor to many other parts of the world where rot is met with ; vegetables of a special or particular variety being, as is well known, far more restricted in their distribution than even the lowest forms of animal life. Wherever, however, the disease is manifested, there the mortality will be found equal to our own, be this in the eastern or western hemispheres, in the torrid or frigid zones. Mr. Youatt observes that “ many sheep are destroyed by the rot in Germany. In the north of France,” he adds, “ they are fre- quently swept away by it, and in the winter of 1809 scarcely a merino in the whole of that kingdom escaped. It is destruc- tive as far north in Europe as Norway, and even the most southern provinces of Spain have had occasion to mourn its ravages. It has thinned many a flock in North America, and in Van Diemen’s Land and Australia it has occasionally been as destructive as on the worst undrained land in England.”t * Discussion on Rot. Royal Agricultural Society, February 20th, 1861. See also the Society’s Journal, passim. 11 Carnation grass,” correctly speaking, is a sedge, the Car ex prcecox. It is well known in the eastern counties. It has a creeping root like couch—Triticum repens —and owes its name to the colour of its leaves, which are of bluish green or glaucous hue. f 4 Sheep: their Breeds, Management and Diseases/ p. 445.