CHAPTER XII 



" GROUSE DISEASE " — CONTINUED — PATHOLOGY ^ 



By Dr L. Cobhett and Dr G. S. Graham-Smith 



The fact that wild animals are subject, like man, to diseases does not obtrude 

 itself upon our notice, probably because they often hide themselves when 

 ill, and creep into some corner to die, and perhaps because they jntroduc- 

 have less aptitude for expressing their sufferings. However this ^^°^- 

 may be, they bear so generally the aspect of perfect health that when 

 attacked by a serious epizootic disorder, the latter gets dubbed with 

 the name of the species it attacks ; and so one hears of silk-worm wild 



animals. 



disease, horse sickness, or swine fever, as though these were the 

 only diseases from which those species suffer. 



The Grouse, like other animals, suffers, doubtless, from a variety of 

 diseases and disorders, but one of these, it is held, so far exceeds all the 

 rest in importance that it has earned for itself the name of " Grouse Disease." 

 Sportsmen and gamekeepers bear undivided testimony to the existence Disease in 

 of this epizootic, which is observed with varying severity and <^''°"S'^- 

 regularity in spring and autumn ; but it is not easy to be certain whether 

 in " Grouse Disease " we have to do with a specific infectious disease, as is 

 generally assumed, or merely with a series of disastrous consequences set in 

 train by unusual privation, due perhaps to a bad season. Still less easy is 

 it, in the case of any given bird, to tell whether or not it is suffering, 

 or has suffered, from " Grouse Disease," especially at a time when birds are 

 dying in unusual numbers ; for even if we agree that there is a specific 

 infection, we must admit also that privation claims its toll, and which of 

 the two our bird is suffering from is not easy to decide, even after it is 

 dead, for " Grouse Disease " has no characteristic symptoms, or very obvious 

 macroscopic lesions. 



' Reprinted from The Journal of Hygiene, vol. x., No. 1, June 1910. 

 VOL. I. 273 S 



