164 
ON THE LOUPING-ILL IN SHEEP. 
sion of useful knowledge, extremely ignorant of what ought most 
immediately to concern them, namely, the nature and cure of the 
diseases of the animals entrusted to their care. 
In this complaint there is also not unfrequently, when they have 
taken the ground, a great appearance of sickness. The animal like- 
wise exhibits great restlessness and anxiety, mingled with debility 
— he trembles, and tosses his limbs about, as if enduring great pain. 
At this time there is also less of involuntary tremor and convul- 
sive twitchings than at other stages of the disease ; and it seems 
as if the seat of the complaint was in the heart, or stomach, or tho- 
racic, or abdominal viscera. From such conjectures or realities 
medical men may be naturally enough led to conclude that the 
animal is labouring under the attack of some other disease than 
louping-ill ; but such is not the case. These are only varieties of 
the same complaint, which had either previously, or will subsequent 
to these anomalous symptoms, put on its usual and decisive appear- 
ances. In fact, the disease does occasionally assume so many dif- 
ferent forms, although each is, more or less, connected and allied 
with the other, that the most skilful veterinary practitioner may 
for awhile be puzzled to say whether it is most akin to tetanus, 
apoplexy, or palsy. 
The post-mortem appearances are the following : — There is, for 
the most part, a quantity of thick and turbid fluid, of a greenish or 
yellowish colour, found collected in the pleural or pericardic cavity. 
When the animal dies immediately on being struck, it will often 
exhibit every appearance of general inflammation. Every part 
will be turgid with blood ; but there has not been sufficient time 
for gangrene to follow. If the symptoms have not been violent, 
but the animal lingers for a considerable time, the blood will seem 
to have been wasted or consumed, and the flesh be as white as if 
the patient had been bled in the usual manner. A considerable 
quantity of coagulated or extravasated blood is often found on the 
brain, and also in the cervical portion of the vertebral canal. 
Louping-ill is not only endemic, or confined to particular local- 
ities or districts, but it is often more widely distended, and epide- 
mic. As to its contagiousness there is considerable doubt. It is 
also a periodical disease. The usual time of its appearance in hill- 
sheep is from the beginning of April to the end of May, during 
which months it commits great ravages, both among ewes and 
lambs. From twenty to twenty-five per cent, are often lost ; and 
in some seasons considerably more. This is, in a great measure, 
regulated by the spring being late or early. When the grass 
comes rapidly to a full bite, the apoplectic attacks are most frequent 
and fatal. A lamb may be eating, and apparently well, and all at 
once he springs from the ground, utters a violent scream, and falls 
