In anæmias squamous eruptions. In cold rainy weather moist eczema.
Salving. Thin wooled. Congestion, swelling, papules, vesicles, scabs,
depilation. Recovery with dry weather. Prevention: fold in rainy
weather, covers. Pruriginous eczema. Fagopyrism.
The skin of the sheep is so densely covered by wool and so lubricated
with its own secretion, that it is little liable to non-parasitic
dermatitis, or such as exist are to a large extent overlooked. In
internal parasitisms (distomatosis, strongyliasis, etc.), the wool
becomes flattened (“clapped”) and the skin the seat of a dry (squamous)
eczema with scaly accumulations around the roots of the wool.
MOIST ECZEMA, the “_rain rot_” of the Germans is seen in low conditioned
sheep which have been left out in the heavy cold rains, and is
attributed to the direct entrance of the rain by the dorsal shed of the
wool. In salving sheep it is a great point with the shepherds to avoid
opening the way for such entrance, by shedding only at a short distance
on each side of the spine, and never directly in the center. Thin wooled
sheep are also specially liable to the disease. When the rain enters so
as to soak the skin and deeper layers of the wool, it softens and
macerates the skin, introduces microbes and favors decomposition and in
various ways incites to dermatitis. The skin becomes red and swollen
with an eruption of papules and vesicles, and an exudation which
concretes in scabs around the wool, which under the constant accretions
from below lifts the wool from its follicles, leaving bare scurfy, or
vesicular patches. This appears in different parts of the body beginning
in the region of the vertebræ (back, loins, croup), and extending on the
shoulders, neck, sides of the chest and abdomen. The disease is rarely
inveterate and generally subsides spontaneously on the return of the dry
weather. Still it may cause considerable loss of wool and hence it may
be desirable to fold the flocks during cold rainy seasons, or, if they
must be run at pasture, to cover the back of each with a piece of
sacking.