Investigation into the disease of sheep called "scrapie" (Traberkrankheit, la tremblante) : with especial reference to its association with sarcosporidiosis / by J.P. M'Gowan ; with an appendix on a case of Johne's disease in the sheep.

  • M'Gowan, J. P. (John Pool)
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Investigation into the disease of sheep called "scrapie" (Traberkrankheit, la tremblante) : with especial reference to its association with sarcosporidiosis / by J.P. M'Gowan ; with an appendix on a case of Johne's disease in the sheep. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    HISTORY OF THE DISEASE IN BRITAIN. THE disease has been definitely known in Britain under various names since before the middle of the eighteenth century. The designations applied to it include, amongst others, such terms as “Serapie,” “Scratchie,” “Rubbers,” “Rickets,” “Goggles,” “Shakings,” “Shrewcroft,” “Cuddie Trot.” While some of these have been used at times to indicate diseases other than that with which we are dealing, it will be seen from the extracts given below that they have been mainly and, on such occasions, distinctly used to point to this condition. One of the earliest occurrences of the disease in Britain is referred to in the ‘General View of the Agriculture of Wiltshire,’ published in 1811 (1),1and written by Thomas Davis. In his description of the disorder of sheep called the “ Goggles,” he says :— | This disorder, we must observe, has tended, more than all other reasons combined, to bring the Wiltshire sheep into discredit. It is not clearly known when this disorder first made its appearance in Wiltshire, nor is it certain that it is peculiar to this kind of sheep. The symptoms are that the animal becomes loose in its backbone, with shakings in its hind-quarters, preceded by a continued drooping of the ears. It was very little noticed in Wiltshire till about twenty-five years ago, and yet it is certain that a disease which was undoubtedly the same disorder was known in Lincolnshire about sixty years ago. By a memorial delivered to the House of Commons in 1755 by the breeders and feeders of sheep in the county of Lincoln, it is stated that for ten years then past a disorder which they called the rickets or shaking had prevailed among their sheep; that it was communicated in the blood by the rams, and would frequently be in the blood twelve months or two years before it was perceivable, but that when once a sheep had this disorder it never recovered. The disorder called the rickets is now [1811] prevalent in some parts of Cambridgeshire, with the symptoms above mentioned. I am informed that all sorts of sheep are subject to this disorder, * The figures in brackets refer to the lists of authorities given at the end of chapters. A