THE NEW DISEASE IN SHEEP.

Otago Witness, Issue 802, 13 April 1867, Page 8

THE NEW DISEASE IN SHEEP.

(From the Melbourne Angus' 16.)'

Sensational writing is rather too much the fashion now-a-days, both in novels and out of them ; and the public have lately had something of a strong but unpleasant kind in the description by local papers of a plague said to have broken out in a flock of sheep lately brought across the Murray into Victoria. Recent investigations have tended so much to prove the invariable presence of internal worms in immense numbers in every part of the carcases of diseased beasts — some of these thriving equally well in, and causing the most intense suffering to, human beings — that the mere idea of having eaten an underdone chop or steak off an animal which by any possibility could have been infected with a pestilent disease, is enough to make one's flesh creep, as if the nasty entozoa had already taken possession of our veins and muscles, and were busy forming nests for the future millions they so quickly produce. Thus, when told that a flock of sheep from an infected part of New South Wales had crossed the Murray, and were dying in scores, as well ai all the piasallowed toeatthe carcases, and the men who skinned them or handled them in any way, no wonder the inhabitants of the district should at once begin to look upon mutton and pork with loathing. But all this alarm was caused by the most wanton exaggeration, only to be excused in a place where a sensatioa of any kind is preferable to thei dull monotony of every day existence. Tbe facts are now known, however, and are quite bad enough. Two men have died from the effects of an animal poison taken into their blood, doubtless from these sheep, but no pigs have suffered, and the deaths of the other persons unfortunately connected with this affair have been ascertained to have arisen from other causes. The simple truth is, that the sheep brought the Cumberland disease with them for the first time into our territory, aad it is to be hoped that wo may never have to announce its appearance again ; for it has killed many beasts and men in New South Wales, and ia incurable.

But to understand what chance there is of this freedom from it for the luture there is need to see how much has been learned as yet about such an alarming ailment. It is always called the Cumberland dise- c e in New South Wales, because it first appeared in that county. But a few years ago it was named splenic apoplexy ;by the veterinary surgeons of England, where they have experience enough of the malady also. And all that is known about it up even to the present day can be summed up in a few words. In 1362 it became prevalent in certain counties of England for a short time during the summer, and Professor Simons was ordered to obtain all the information he could, and to report to the Royal Society the result of his inquiries. In bringing up this report, he commenced with a sketch of the disease, which he allowed, in common with all his professional brethren, to be one of the blood: but of the actual cause he could say nothing It is clearly not contagious, however, for when it breaks out amongst cattle or sheep in any one field, it ceases to appear within a very few days afcer their removal to healthy ground, or as soon a3 all which have become infected in the unhealthy ground have died ; and it is a disease that does not brood lon*. No fresh ca*es arise from contact with diseased animals off the pestilential field-* ; though these may bs only separated by a slight fence from others with precisely similar land, herbage, and water in them. All the different lots of cattle and sheep taken into the infected fields are affected the same way, one after another, during a certain portion of the summer, and year after year, unless the ground is overstocked, in which case no apoplectic symptoms ever appear. At first it was supposed that there must be some poisonous herb 3 in these fields, or that the water was bad, but the water was analysed and the herbage examined by two ot the best professional men in England, and they declared these to be precisely the same as were to be found in the healthy fields. Thus the idea of the disease arising from poison had to be siven up, and, to complicate the matter still more, it was fouad that, while it is only fatal on the pasture land in summer, many animals die of it m the depth of winter when being stall fed. Thus Professor Simons had to allow that he could assign no cause for its origin, and in more lately alluding to it in one of his inaugural addresses, he suggested that it misht possibly be caused by the vast amount of minute insect life generated by some of the manures now so freely used. However that may be, it is certain that splenic apoplexy ia increasing in England in an equal ratio to the extent to which high feeding and high farming are carried. And we may remark that there is not the same danger to human beings from blood-poisoning in England as there is here, for it w not fatal to those who may be inoculated, or to pigs or dogs which eat the flesh, unless

the animal has combated with the disease for a greater number of hoars than they usually live after the first apparent attack. Thus the blood becomes more poisonous every hour the animal lives; but it becomes more - quickly so here, and in both countries the average number of recoveries is about one in a hundred.

Such being the nature of this disease, according to the best authorities in England, stipporei by the experience of many years in New South Wales, what right had the chief inspector of sheep here to turn alarmist as well as the newspaper writer?, and say in his letter to the Chief Secretary — "There is no other known way of dealing with it but that of stopping the iogros of diseased sheep from th3t Colony (New S mth Wales), and that if it doe 1 * once obtain a footing in Victoria, it is not unreasonable to apprehend (from what is positively kaovin of its course in the neighboring colony) tha^ its ravages may noc cntne to an and until millions of sheep have become us victims"? Wa3 this statemeut made in ignorance of what has really been the cause of the disease in the neighboring colony, or with the view of adding a little importance to his office ? In either ca«e, the public would have more confidence in a report from a qualified veterinary surgeon than from the assistant to a chief guilty of such an error. The inspectors of sheep may by this time have learned something about scab, but it is not likely that they understand anything ol the Cumberland disease, either in the living or dead beast. But although this is not contagious, as far as our knowledge yet goes, we are sure to have it in Victoria, sooner or later, if the circumstances favorable for its development exist, and whether diseased sheep are brought across the border or not ; but the sheepowners have demanded from the Chief Secretary no more than they have a right to expect, namely, protection from the chancs of admixture with theirs of any sheep from the adjoining Colony infected with a serious disease of the sort. Surely, if Victorian sheep are absolutely forbidden entrance into New South Wales for fear of taking with them the seab — a disease in no way injurious to the health of the public, however it may be so to the pocket of the owner — we are not expecting too much to ask that sheep, or cattle either, shall be excluded from thi3 Colony when suffering under the disease in question, or any other so fatal to human life.