1904.] 



Acute Rheumatism in Lambs, 



231 



The Board recently had their attention drawn by one of their 

 agricultural correspondents to a complaint affecting sheep on a 



also bought in in the autumn to be sold as ripe stores or fat in 

 the following spring and early summer. 



The complaint was only noticed in wet years among lambs 

 purchased from the Sussex hills, which were folded on turnips 

 in October and November, also getting cake and corn. It 

 was described as producing stiffness in the early stages, 

 knuckling of the joints, contraction of the tendons of fore and 

 hind limbs, movement being very painful and, in the worst cases, 

 death would occur in a few days. If these sheep were taken in 

 the early stages off the turnips and placed on the drier uplands 

 they usually recovered. This disease did not seem very general, 

 but it appeared in a few farms last winter, and caused slight losses. 

 From the description given of the symptoms, and from the fact 

 that it was only noticed among folded sheep in wet years, when 

 they are receiving a highly nutritive acid-forming food, the 

 Board's Veterinary Inspector, who inquired into this case, came 

 to the conclusion that the disease was acute rheumatism. 



A teg which had been ill for some time, apparently from 

 chronic rheumatism, was killed, and a post-mortem examination 

 made. This lamb had quite lost the use of its limbs, its 

 tendons were very much contracted and the joints enlarged, 

 but the viscera proved quite healthy. The tendons were so 

 contracted that the limbs were pulled into fantastic shapes, 

 and in some tendons salts had deposited, being quite gritty 

 to cut. 



All the synovial surfaces of the joints were erroded, in some 

 cases errosion had extended to cancellated tissue at the ends of 

 the bones, in which degenerative changes were taking place. 

 In some cases the ulcerative process had healed, a white 

 porcelain-like deposit being found on synovial surfaces of the 

 joints. In opening up the spinal cord it was found that all the 

 lumbar vertebrae had ankylosed, and that adventitious bone 

 formation had so secluded the neural canal that the outline of 



Acute 

 Rheumatism in 

 Lambs. 



farm in Sussex. This farm consisted of 

 1,000 acres of upland and marsh. About 

 300 ewes were lambed down each year, 

 and several hundred Southdown lambs were 



