THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



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596. Symptoms. — The first symptoms to be noticed are that the 

 head is carried erect, with staring eyes, and that there is a staggering, 

 jerky gait, with muscular twitchings and tremblings of the body. 

 Next the falling down and struggling of the animal will attract 

 attention, and this will be followed by convulsions, paralysis, and 

 death. Many of the animals die suddenly ; others linger on for 

 several days, and finally recover, when removed at once from the 

 disease-producing pasture and carefully nursed. If certain animals 

 recover when removed from an affected area, there appears to be 

 some hope of preventing in some degree an outbreak of the malady. 



597. Prevention. — Whether the disease is due to the coarse indi- 

 gestible grasses, or to the disease-producing germs either conveyed 

 by the medium of the tick or by being deposited on the ground in the 

 dung, it is evident that the ground or the pastures in certain localities 

 is the medium for conveying the infection, and as a preventive I 

 would recommend — (1) That, at the back end of the year, the mowing- 

 machine should be run over the land to cut down all the rough 

 coarse grass, and this may be left on the ground to rot, and so act as 

 a manure for the succeeding year's grass, or be burned. (2) When 

 practicable, apply from 10 to 12 cwt. rough crushed salt to the 

 imperial acre, which will not only kill the grass, but the disease-pro- 

 ducing germs deposited on the ground, as well as the tick, will also 

 be annihilated (providing the tick has its winter shelter amongst the 

 grass). (3) If this cannot be done, then lay large lumps of rock salt 

 all over the pastures for the sheep to lick at their leisure. In the 

 west of Cumberland (Millom), a large park was for years notorious 

 for red-water and dysentery in cattle, and sheep staggers (louping-ill) 

 in sheep, as many as 100 fatal cases of the last-mentioned occurring 

 in one season. Yet by the application of 120 tons crushed rock salt 

 to the grazing portion of the park these diseases were eradicated. 

 The same success has also attended the application of salt to disease- 

 infested areas both in Surrey and Leicestershire, and the result of a 

 10-ton trial on a 20-acre field at Leithen Hall, near Moffat (which took 

 place in 1896), has clearly demonstrated that whatever be the cause, 

 dressing land with salt may now be regarded as a specific for 

 louping-ill. 



