The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-23 00:00:00

711 E .2VALIGNANT DISORDER AMONG

SHEEP.

Nearly a month has elapsed since the outbreak of small-
pox in Mr. Joseph Parry's celebrated Allington flock. The
disorder is now spreading, to the great dismay of all flock-
masttrs, in Wilts, Hants, and Dorset. The rumours re-
specting the calamity are exceedingly numerous, and many
of them utterly false, those in particular that apply to
places in mid• Hampshire, and to a district westward of
Southampton, on the immediote bofeler of Dorsetshife. We
can make this assertion on the best authority. With re-
gard to the spreal of the disorder in Wiltshire, we find the
most reliable information in iho _Devizes Gazette of yester-
day. It would appear that up to Monday morning no
symptom of infection had manifested itself beyond Ailing..
ton, and as a few more days would have seen Mr. Parry's
sheep through the last stage of the disease, the adjoining
fEckmasters entertained good hope that the loathsome and
fatal malady would have been eradicated without doing fur-
ther mischief, The disease, however, has shown itself in a
flock of 400 beautiful fat wethers belonging to Mr. Harding,
of Etchilhamplon, which were being corn-fed in prepara-
tion for Wilton fair, on a spot at least a mile and a half
from Allington, and divided from it by the canal and by
intermediate farms.
Naturally apprehensive for the safety of his fleck, Mr.
Harding had, immediately upon hearing that the disease
had broken out among Mr. Parry's sheep, his own flock
removed to the remotest corner of his farm, They were ac-
cordingly placed in a field near " the Monument," adjoin-
ing the Salisbury road, where it seemed almost impossible
that the disease could reach them—without, at all events,
first passing through the flocks which were folded on the
intermediate farms. About midday on Monday the atten-
tion of the shepherd was arrested by the staggering gait of
some of the sheep, and upon an examination being made, it
was unmistakeably apparent that the dreaded malady had
come among them. Mr. Harding at once went over to
Allington to consult with Mr. Parry, and, finding that Pro-
fessor Simonds was expected from London on the following
day, he awaited the arrival of that eminent veterinary, and
on Tuesday Professor Simonds examined the flock, and by
his advice the whole of the sheep cn Monday were inocu-
lated, as the most likely means of lessening the fatal conse-
quences of the attack.
The consternation which this fresh outbreak has caused
will, as the Devizes paper points out, readily be understood,
and the danger is the more alarming from the inexplicable
way in which the disease has been conveyed. Had it ap-
peared in either of the flocks on adjoining farms to Mr.
Parry's, it might in some way have been accounted for, but
there is no means of accounting for its appearance on the

spot where it has now shown itself—far removed, as we
have said, from Allington Farm, and with flocks folded on
intermediate land, which up to the preseut time are per-
fectly healthy and well.
The medicines which have been used in the case of the
Allington flock have been very simple, consisting chiefly of
nitrate of potass, mingled with the water which is placed in
the troughs, until a subsistence of the fever takes place,
after which sulphate of iron has been substituted. Where
diarrhoea has come on—as it not unfrequently does in the
latter stage of the malady, more particularly if the pox
becomes confluent—opium is recommended as a valuable
agent to arrest the attack, which, if not quickly stopped,
very soon carries off the sheep.