6 QUATERCENTENARY STUDIES IN PATHOLOGY 



Braxy is a most destructive disease in Iceland, the Faroes, and the 

 west coast of Norway ; in fact it may be asserted that wherever the 

 waters of the Gulf Stream impinge upon the littoral of a country, there 

 Braxy will be found to prevail. It is quite likely that other diseases of 

 the group infest such countries as well as Braxy, although nothing is 

 known of the matter. 



Pecuniary Loss. — The pecuniary loss entailed upon sheep-farming 

 districts afflicted by these diseases, directly and indirectly, is enormous. 

 It has been calculated that our loss in Great Britain must amount to 

 something like half-a-million yearly, and this, I fear, is really an under- 

 statement of the case. So dreadful is the mortality in certain areas of 

 Scotland that sheep farming as a profitable industry is ceasing to exist. 



Chorea paralytica ovis, or Louping-ill. 



It would be too large an undertaking to attempt even to outline the 

 features of each of the diseases I have enumerated, in a communication 

 of the present scope. 



For the purpose I have in view, namely, that of illustrating the 

 importance of the alimentary canal as a source of contagion in a 

 number of diseases of man and the lower animals, whose pathology 

 heretofore has been unexplained, I shall select one, namely, so-called 

 " Louping-ill," that is to say, the leaping disease, a name applied to it 

 popularly on account of the very manifest convulsive spasms with which 

 the animal is affected. The late Principal Williams gave it the scientific 

 designation of " Chorea paralytica ovis " — a term which seems to be 

 singularly appropriate. 



The disease, as just remarked, is one which prevails chiefly during 

 the spring months, although sporadic cases occur in the autumn or early 

 winter. The period extending from the middle of April to the middle 

 of June may be said to mark the limits of its occurrence in an epidemic 

 form, the middle of May constituting the zenith of its intensity. The 

 valley of the North Tyne is one of the most severely smitten areas, and 

 it was greatly through the interest shown in the matter by the Duke of 

 Northumberland that the Board of Agriculture Inquiry was under- 

 taken. The loss from it in the West Highlands of Scotland is tre- 

 mendous, while all over the southern counties of Scotland its ravages 



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