On nodular disease of the intestine in Sheep.

BY

SURGEON G. M. GILES, M.B, F.R.C.S.,

INDIAN MEDICAL SERVICE.

       IT is an unfortunate fact that the rearing or keeping of sheep is next-door to
impossible, either in Assam or Burma.

       In both these localities mutton is a sort of exotic luxury, obtained at much
expense by importation from India.

       The supply of Rangoon, for example, is regularly brought over in the
weekly B. I. boats, and, in Assam the butchers march sheep up from Bengal in
comparatively small batches, and dispose of them as quickly as possible. Naturally,
owing to the animals being slaughtered immediately after so severe a march,
good bazar mutton is practically unobtainable; and hence, wherever the European
population is sufficiently numerous, "mutton clubs" are formed, which import
sheep, and fatten them up as rapidly as may be, for the table.

       Not unfrequently, however, these co-operations fail owing to large losses of
their sheep.

       It is needless almost to say that these losses are always ascribed to that
favourite scapegoat for hazy sanitarians—climate ; though how or why the
climate of the Indo-Chinese peninsula should be particularly prejudicial to sheep
I cannot remember any one attempting to explain.

       The explanation I have now to offer refers the mortality ultimately, it is true,
to climatic conditions; but it has the advantage of explaining how and why the
climate acts prejudicially, and therefore of showing us in what direction we may
best take preventive measures.

       The fact is that the prolonged dampness of these climates is peculiarly
favourable to the welfare of the free stages of nematode parasites, many of which
are particularly fatal to cattle in general, and to sheep and solidungulates in par-
ticular. Of Burma I can say but little, and can only judge from a few reports
from others, and from the probability afforded by similar climatic conditions;
but, with regard to Assam, I can, from personal observation, answer for the fact
that its climate forms a sort of paradise for parasites.

       I examined, in connection with my investigation of Kala-azar, the carcases of
several species of animals; and not only every species, but every individual, was
found to harbour more or fewer species of entozoa, many being perfect miniature