672 MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP DISEASES 



May to June). Scotland and North of England : long thin 

 rods, very actively mobile, movement snake-like. 



F. " Disease A ' " (September to middle of December). 

 West Highlands and South of Scotland : very large rods, with 

 feeble motility. 



G. " Disease ' B '" (October to January). West Highlands 

 and South of Scotland : long thread-like rods, motionless. 



H. " Deer disease." Alnwick Park, Northumberland : 

 extremely long thin rods, motionless, or only slightly motile. 



All are sheep diseases but the last, which is confined to 

 deer. Louping-Ill and black-quarter also attack cattle, and 

 louping-ill swine in addition. 



Braxy or sickness, Morbus subitarius ovis, is a widely 

 distributed disease in the United Kingdom, but chiefly within 

 the area influenced by the Gulf Stream, viz., in the West of 

 Scotland, the West of England (including Wales), the West 

 coast of Ireland, as well as on the West coast of Norway, and 

 the whole of Iceland and the Faroe Islands. In the Faroes, 

 where it is very deadly, a protective vaccine, or weak culture 

 of braxy bacilli, prepared by Prof. C. O. Jensen at Copen- 

 hagen, was introduced in 1897, and it has since been used 

 with great success on 10,000 sheep annually. In some of the 

 worst areas in the West and South of Scotland, 20 per cent, of 

 the best of the sheep of less than a year old die under ordinary 

 circumstances. In Scotland it prevails most in autumn, but 

 sometimes it occurs in spring, when there are sudden and 

 severe white frosts at night, and the grass is of a rank growth. 

 The succulent green herbage or " tath " from the droppings 

 of cattle is most liable to produce the disease, which runs its 

 course so quickly within a few hours that no ordinary remedy 

 is of much avail. The flesh of sheep which have died of 

 braxy is deep red in colour, particularly about the abdomen, 

 is eaten with safety, and when the hind quarters are dried 

 into hams, ranks as a delicacy among people who have been 

 accustomed from early youth to eat it. When cases of 

 anthrax are mistaken for it, the people handling or consuming 

 the flesh frequently die from contracting that disease. 

 Putrefaction sets in immediately after death, and the smell 

 and flavour are high and to many people objectionable. The 

 first symptoms are, " a short, quick step, followed by unsteady 

 gait, and a tendency to lie down and get up suddenly." 



