212 THE FARMERS VETERINARIAN 



of care in the way of regulating the diet, etc., but 

 should avoid annoying it by our attention. Medici- 

 nal treatment is of little benefit and should be 

 given a secondary place. In fact, dosing the animal 

 with medicine, especially if large doses are given, 

 may do more harm than good in the treatment of 

 this disease. 



LOCO DISEASE. — The word loco is a Spanish 

 word, and means crazy. Loco disease is a disease 

 of the brain and nervous system, especially of horses 

 and cattle, but may also affect other animals. It 

 results from eating any one of a number of poison- 

 ous plants called loco which grow upon the dry, 

 sandy prairies of some parts of the Western United 

 States. 



In winter and early spring, when there is little 

 or no grass, some animals acquire an appetite for 

 this plant, and soon refuse all other kinds of food. 

 When addicted to the weed an animal loses flesh 

 rapidly, the eyesight becomes affected — often it has 

 no knowledge of distance — and frequently when 

 made to step over a board or rail will jump over it 

 as though it were several feet high. Later, in the 

 course of the disease, the brain becomes more 

 affected and the animal acts more or less crazy, at 

 titties quite violent, at others depressed and dull. 



Should the animal live through the first attack 

 it may linger for months or even years, but it 

 usually dies as a result of the attack. Frequently 

 some peculiar " foolish " habit follows the animals 

 through life. Some have a nervous fit when excited 

 or warmed up, others will not lead and some you 

 cannot drive at all. There is no cure for the 

 trouble. All that can be done is to prevent the 

 habit from being formed or by removing the animal 



