C32 
Louping 111. 
I have myself seen at a farm where the disease prevailed amongst 
sheep, a bullock affected with it ; the animal recovered in a day or 
two, but was distinctly affected ; its symptoms were very striking, 
and as the shepherd graphically described them : “ The animal 
behaved and moved as if it were tipsy.” As soon as it showed the 
disease it was isolated from the rest of the herd and attended to, 
and no further case appeared amongst the cattle. It is curious that 
in the case of this bullock no question of tick was, or could be, put 
forward, yet this happened on a farm where the disease had been 
rife amongst the sheep. 
There is one other phenomenon which seems to me worth mention- 
ing, although I do not, and indeed I could not at present, until 
further and more extended observations have confirmed it, put it 
forward as more than a suggestion. It is this : in all previous years 
the climax of the epidemic in the farms about Kielder, I am assured, 
is not reached until the middle of May ; this year, however, by 
May 10 few, if any, cases were available — the epidemic had practically 
ceased and run its course on these farms. Now, this year, for the 
first time, on and after April 27, i.e. soon after the epidemic com- 
menced, every animal, as soon as it was smitten with the disease, 
was removed from the rest and brought down to me for investiga- 
tion, so that thereby every diseased animal ceased to be a focus of 
infection to the others. The curious fact that the epidemic had by 
May 10 already so abated as to be practically over, was admittedly 
striking ; and though the disease did not commence earlier than 
usual, i.e. about the end of the third week in April, it nevertheless 
ceased this year considerably earlier than usual. As I said above, 
I by no means wish to insist that the immediate removal of the 
diseased sheep from the rest is the true explanation of the abnormal 
shortness of the epidemic in these farms, especially as the unusually 
fine and dry spring may have bad something to do with its cessation ; 
but, at any rate, it is highly suggestive and worth acting on. 
I strongly advise action being taken in the future in this direction, 
viz. as soon as a sheep shows the illness let it be separated from 
the rest and kept isolated in an enclosure for the purpose ; no harm 
can come from this ; whereas it may be, as I hope it will, a means 
of diminishing the number of cases and of mitigating the epidemic. 
It could not altogether do away with the disease, for we have pointed 
out that the cause of the disease, in the first cases at any rate, must 
be sought in the soil ; but it might limit the infection spreading from 
a diseased animal to the others. The two conditions : viz., the con- 
traction of the disease in the first instance by contagium present 
and left on or in the soil by a previous epidemic, and the subsequent 
spread of the disease from an infected animal to others, are well 
known to occur in other infectious disorders, both in man and 
animals. 
All these considerations lead us, then, to the conclusion that the 
disease belongs to the group of infectious or communicable diseases. 
There can be no doubt that if it can be shown that the growth and 
