Louping-ill in Sheep. 
559 
opinion summarised in it is due to the fact that several different 
diseases were described under the term louping-ill by the persons 
whom the committee consulted. The inquiries of the committee 
were mainly directed towards throwing light on the alleged r6le 
of ticks, and of ergot or other fungi in the herbage, as causes of 
the disease, but the report admits that the results of the inquiry 
were “ more negative than positive.” Mr. Brotherston, who made 
a list of the flora of certain louping-ill farms in Upper Teviotdale, 
discovered ergot on no fewer than twenty-three specimens of grasses, 
and the late Professor Robertson (then resident at Kelso) therefore 
thought it not unnatural to regard louping-ill as a form of “ spas- 
modic ergotism,” but in experiments which the committee made 
with ergot of rye on five sheep “the results were disappointing,” 
as the only effect produced was scouring. 
As regards the tick theory, the committee ascertained that, while 
in most cases ticks were found where the disease prevailed, this was 
not universally the case, and they found it difficult to believe that 
the effect of the ticks could be more than indirect, “ either as carriers 
of the poison or as exhausting the stamina of the sheep and making 
them more liable to disease.” 
The Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society for 
1883 contain a report by a special committee on Louping-ill and 
Braxy. Mr. Brotherston, who at the instance of the committee, 
visited infected farms in Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire, and Selkirk- 
shire, found that the prevalence of louping-ill was “ in proportion to 
the quantity of old withered grasses left from the previous year’s 
growth.” The committee ascertained that ticks might exist without 
louping-ill, and they were informed that louping-ill occurred without 
ticks, but, as regards the latter statement, they remarked that 
perhaps the disease referred to was not “ true louping-ill.” By way of 
prevention, the committee recommended (1) direct improvement of 
hill pastures, and (2) indirect improvement by keeping down rank 
and excessive vegetation. 
Professor Williams, who was a member of the above committee 
appointed by the Highland and Agricultural Society, sent in a 
special report, in which he claimed to have discovered the cause of 
louping-ill. At the post-mortem examination of sheep killed while 
suffering from this disease, Professor Williams found a jelly-like 
substance lying external to the dura mater (the outermost covering 
of the spinal cord), and he regarded this as a zooglcea formation 
or mycelial growth. From the spinal fluid and from the blood in 
such cases cultures were made, and one of the organisms thus 
obtained — a bacillus — was regarded as the cause of the disease, 
though this conclusion was not supported by any experiment to show 
that the disease was transmissible by inoculation with either the 
jelly-like substance or the bacillus cultivated from it. 
Professor Williams’s cultivation experiments were made with 
such obvious disregard of the precautions necessary in bacteriological 
