Receipt for Curing the Wood Evil, Frog Ill, Rickets Goggles, or Shaking in Sheep

                                         London.
                                             __
                   Mr. FRASER’S REPORT OF DEVON
                                            ___
                              DISEASE OF SHEEP.
                                            ___

              
The following extract from this valuable report, can-
not fail to be very acceptable to our numerous readers in
the country. It may perhaps induce people to attend
more than hitherto to the diseases of this most useful ani-
mal
    The stocks in the western part of England being very
subject to the disease called the Goggles, &c. the fol-
lowing remedy for it, which comes from a respectable
quarter, is recommended to the readers attention.
                                           _____
         Receipt for curing the Wood Evil, Frog Ill, Rickets Gog-
                          gles, or shaking in sheep
    The disorders in sheep have been so little attended to, 
that it is difficult to le[a]rn the names of them; and when
the names are obtained they are, in different counties
applied to diseases accompanied with such very different,
symptoms, that unless the nature of the disease be previ-
ously described, any receipt may be as useless or injurious
in one country as it is beneficial in another. 
    The disorder for which the following receipt is recom-
mended, is a weakness and perfect debility in the loins;
which in different counties, is called by the names above
mentioned. But shaking does not seem to be at all appli-
cable to it, because the sheep is affected with no symp-
ton of that kind. The goggles is a disease which affects
the head, and is occasioned sometimes by a worm and
sometimes by water. In time it makes the sheep turn
always on one side and give the appearance of the whole
side and loins being affected; but the seat of that dis-
ease is in the head. The frog, or hoof of the sheep is
not at all hurt, and there[f]ore I would wholly reject the
name of the frog ill, for the present. The rickets, a
descriptive of the disease known under that name amongst
children, is accompanied with a weakness in the loins,
and therefore may be applied to the present complaint; 
but as that name denotes other ailments also, I would
affix the name of wood-evil only to the following disor-
der:
    In the winter 1792, I had a sheep which apparently 
had lost the use of his hinder legs: if raised from the 
ground he could not stand: and my shepherd baliff, and
workmen agreed that he was past all recovery, and must
die very soon. Under these circumstances it was im-
possible to do any harm, and, recollecting, that for
some time past, the nights had been very cold and wet,
I concluded that the sheep was chilled and benumbed;
therefore I blooded him, and prepared the following me-
dicine:
    Take penny royal, wild scabeous, and shepherds purse.
of each half a handful; bruise them well, and boil them
in three pints of a[l]e; then strain off the liquid part, by
hard squeezing and pressing the herbs; add cumrain seeds,
fenugreek seeds, and caraway seeds, of each one ounce, 
and of London treacle two ounces: put these in a bottle
and stop it close.
    I gave the sheep nearly half a pint in the afternoon;
the same quantity in the morning and evening of the
next day, and the remainder of the bottle on the day
after, when the sheep got up, walked away has ailed
nothing since, and has been fatted.
    The medicine is not the worse for keeping, and will
be found useful in many sudden complaints: but if giv-
en for a fever, omit the carminative seeds.
    May 13, 1794.