1011] Grouse Disease. 11 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February ?>, 1911. 



Sm William Crookes, O.M. LL.D. D.Sc. F.R.S., Honorary 

 Secretary and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Arthur E. Shipley, Esq., M.A. Sc.D. F.R.S., Master of Christ's 

 College, Cambridge, Reader of Zoology in the University. 



Grouse Disease. 



" The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary is 

 of CQore importance than Seneca ; and that half the unhappiness in 

 the world proceeds from little stoppages, from a duct choked up, 

 from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vext duodenum, or an 

 agitated pylorus." 



Thus that incorrigible amateur-physician, Sydney Smith wrote 

 of our poor suffering humanity, and thus we can as truly write of the 

 grouse. Little stoppages, food pressing in the wrong place, a vext 

 duodenum, and an agitated blind-gut, and there you have '• Grouse 

 disease " ! 



At the onset I must, however, protest against that fallacious and 

 all-embracing expression. It will be difficult to get rid of, for the 

 average keeper and sportsman is seldom clinically inclined, and if he 

 see his birds diseased or dead or dying, and they are grouse, he is 

 content to put it all down to " grouse disease " and to leave it at that. 

 But grouse suffer and die from many diseases. In a few dozen birds 

 examined chiefly in Cambridge, the following disorders were seen : — 

 Pleuro-pneumonia in a bird which had lived long in captivity ; 

 pericarditis ; necrotic changes in the liver ; chronic diseases of the 

 peritoneum ; and a septic infection due to gangrene supervening 

 upon a broken wing. 



Sick and dying animals are apt to creep away into corners and 

 hide themselves ; thus it comes alwut that when these animals die 

 patently and in large numbers, the public is apt to regard this mor- 

 tality as due to some disorder peculiar to the animal in question, and 

 the disease receives the name of the species which is afflicted. Hence 

 we hear of such illnesses as " horse-sickness," " silk-worm disease " 

 and " grouse disease." 



The disorder which is usually associated with the too compre- 

 hensive expression " grouse disease " was investigated by Klein some 

 eighteen years ago, and in this lecture it will be called Klein's grouse 

 disease. Klein found in the tissues of the bodies of birds that had 



