Identifier: sheeplambpractic00walk (find matches)
Title: The sheep and lamb, a practical manual on the sheep and lamb in health and disease
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Walker, John
Subjects: Sheep
Publisher: London, Jack
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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ious extent.An eminent practitioner, Dr. Salmon, found upon inves-tigation that the malady was of a far more seriousnature than the disease commonly known in Englandas foot-and-mouth disease, and he soon traced thecause of it to the food the animals had taken. Sus-picion was first raised to the fact that it could not befoot-and-mouth disease, inasmuch as calves which par-took of milk from diseased mothers did not take it.Sheep and pigs running among the diseased cows didnot fall, and what was more conclusive than all, horses,which of course are never known to suffer from foot-and-mouth disease, fell victims to this strange malady.Shortly the question was set at rest, for the symp-toms of ergotism became fully recognised. Gangreneof the extremities generally occurred; a constrictedband was formed round the limbs, often above the fet-lock joint, and a separation was noticed to form at theupper part of the band. When this band appearednear a joint the portion of the limb below would drop
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ERGOT IN GRASSES. 8i off, and the remaining part would quickly heal. Insome instances the crack or fissure where the separa-tion took place happened at a distance from a joint—the middle of the shin-bone for instance. These werethe most painful cases of all. The disease wouldadvance until it found a joint—it might be the fetlock—and thus the shank-bone would be left denuded offlesh and protruding from the skin. Dr. Salmon compared all these symptoms with therecords of the cases that had occurred in France andGermany many years before, and found the new out-break to correspond therewith in a marked degree. Itonly needed to find ergot in the food to render thesuspicions of ergotism a certainty. The deadly spurswere found in profusion in the grasses used as diet,more especially in a kind of wild rye. In many headshalf the seeds, and in some every one, had beenreplaced by ergot. The hay, too, was found equallyloaded with the spurs, as much as 12 per cent, beingpresent. The different

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