Diseases of Sheep. 



297 



sac or bladder, filled with a watery fluid, and the pressure of 

 this bladder on the brain occasions the peculiar symptoms by 

 which the complaint is recognised. The affected sheep has 

 a wandering, staggering, and insane appearance ; he carries his 

 head on one side, and hence has a difficulty in feeding ; he ap- 

 pears absent in mind, and has a circuitous walk, resembling a 

 horse while being lunged. There is an important distinction to 

 be noticed between the symptoms of this complaint and the ge- 

 neral indications of cerebral disease. Occasionally the sheep 

 may be properly called delirious. An unnatural wildness, at times 

 almost amounting to ferocity, appears to govern the animal's 

 movements : but here a heavy dull langour is the first apparent 

 symptom. The disorder is slow in its progress, the patient lan- 

 guishes on for many days, and even weeks^ and at length dies as 

 if pining away from a low and diseased condition of the system. 

 The eyes are usually prominent. When the animal is driven he 

 takes the circular route I have described. The complaint is not, 

 even in its advanced stages, attended by violence or extreme agita- 

 tion, but rather by an increasing and settled depression of spirits. 

 It is more frequent in wet lands than in high pastures, and espe- 

 cially in undrained soils.* 



It is sufficiently obvious from the description of the symptoms 

 that the disease is beyond the reach of medicine. The brain in all 

 the animal creation is very destitute of absorbent vessels, and were 

 it otherwise, it would be difficult to promote the absorbent action 

 by medicine in this case, because the fluid is contained in a closed 

 cyst, and is part of the living animal. Hence the farmer has 

 been led^ but with little success, to the adoption of mechanical 

 means for the purpose of opening the vesicle containing the hyda- 

 tid, and thereby removing the pressure of the fluid on the brain. 



* The author, in his description of the goggles, states that some shep- 

 herds call it the giddy, and this is the term which we employ in Berkshire. 

 The best means of prevention, with which I am myself acquainted, is to 

 make a judicious crossing of blood from diiferent well known stocks. The 

 goggles is a disease of quite a different character; the first symptoms of it 

 are the following: the animal begins rubbing the wool round the tail, not 

 turning round as the giddy sheep does, but stumbling along in a straight 

 direction, and as the disease increases, the animal staggers a short distance, 

 then falls down, sometimes on its head and at other times on its side, rolling 

 quite over. In the last stages the teeth turn quite black, and the sheep 

 then soon die. Lam of opinion that this disease is infectious. I oncekne\v 

 a tiock of 200 sheep, 64 of which died goggly ; they were bled, and opening 

 medicine given them, but it did no good. — W. Humfkey. [This and the 

 other notes of Mr. William Humfrey, a gentleman of much experience in 

 the management of sheep, of Boxford, near Newbury, Berkshire, are com- 

 municated by the Marquess of Downshire.] 



