Investigation into the disease of sheep called 'scrapie' (Traberkrankheit: la tremblante) with especial reference to its association with sarcosporidiosis.

  • M'Gowan, J. P.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Investigation into the disease of sheep called 'scrapie' (Traberkrankheit: la tremblante) with especial reference to its association with sarcosporidiosis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    clean and naked. At this time the animal appears extremely uneasy, constantly rubbing its head against the hurdles and fences, and scratching its back and sides with its horns, starting suddenly, running a few steps, then falling down, where it will remain a short time and then rise and begin feeding as in perfect health. The skin is perfectly free from eruption and other appearances of disease, nor are there any traces of the disorder discoverable by examination of the entrails, the body, or the head of the animal, and as no instance of a cure has occurred in any of the surrounding parishes, and, moreover, as this disorder is considered to be infectious, the sheep are usually killed on the appearance of the first symptom, though some have been known to languish under its fatal influence for ten or twelve weeks altogether. A quotation is now given from the ' Complete Farmer' (2) of 1807 showing that the term goggles connoted a disease having itchiness as a symptom. Goggles is described there in the following words :— In farriery, a disease in sheep, which is sometimes very destructive. It first shows itself, according to a writer in the Bath papers, by the ears of the sheep drooping and their ruhhing their tails much more than other sheep. It is not supposed to have any affinity to giddiness, ^ as the sheep do not run round. It has the most resemblance to the staggars in lambs, but diflfers in this respect, that the staggary lambs show weakness before and fall forward, whereas goggly sheep show weakness behind, and when forced to run, fall backward. The sheep under the disease continue to get poorer and weaker till they cannot drag their limbs after them and ultimately die. It is supposed by some to be an affection of the paralytic kind, and that of course the seat of the disease is in the spinal marrow. It was formerly either unknown or unnoticed by farmers. No satisfactory method of cure has hitherto been proposed, but warmth and a change of pasture have been supposed useful. [ItaHcs mine.—J. P. M'G.] The writer in the Bath papers referred to in the extract just given is a gentleman in Wiltshire who wrote in 1778 (3), and the author of the article in the 'Complete Farmer' has obviously obtained his information from the Bath papers, but he has not quoted all the important points. It would be 'well, therefore, to give these additional points as follows: .. Within these few years we have had a disease among the sheep now generally known by the name of goggles, a disease which has lfur7f''' ^n^^' ^K^ ^^^^^ P^'^^^' as synonymous with anc Snoone/ 1«?4 ''' ^^'•^;V^T'> ^^'Y' P^^^ ^^^^^^ on sheep, ancl bpooner, 18/4, page 194 of his book on sheep. There is a similar confusion [J. P.'m'G.T^ 'sturdy or staggers by French writers on sheep.—