In the late 1890's the dreaded stock disease, mange (scabies) made its appearance on the Canadian range. Mange is a contagious parasitic disease that causes severe skin irritation which leads to constant rubbing and the eventual shedding of hair. The animal becomes emaciated and unlikely to survive the winter. The stockmen's associations took the lead, therefore, in enforcing stock dipping to check the spread of mange, and the cowboys' roundup responsibilities increasingly involved the dipping of thousands of head of cattle. The "dipping" process, as shown in this scene at the Drowning Ford Ranch near Medicine Hat, consisted of forcing each animal to swim through a vat containing a heated solution of sulfur and lime. E. Hicher, W. Hawke and J.H. Spencer look on.
