Many diseases are characterized by diffuse neurologic lesions associated with bacteria, viruses, toxins, nutritional disorders, and embryologic defects, and the clinical findings of each disease are similar. The global occurrence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has highlighted the importance of accurate clinical diagnosis in adult cattle with neurologic abnormalities.ĭiscrete lesions of the central nervous system (CNS) resulting in well-defined neurologic signs are not common in agricultural animals. At the other end, neurologic examination of the horse with nervous system disease is very advanced. Thus at one end of the spectrum is the clinical examination of pigs affected with nervous system disease, which is limited to an elementary clinical examination and necropsy examination. An aggressive, paretic bull in broad sunlight can be a daunting subject if one wants to examine the pupillary light reflex ophthalmoscopic examination of the fundus of the eye in a convulsing steer in a feedlot pen can be an exasperating task. It may be very difficult to do an adequate neurologic examination on an ataxic belligerent beef cow that is still able to walk and attack the examiner. In many cases this failure has been because of adverse environmental circumstances, or the large size or nature of the animal, all of which adversely impact the quality of the neurologic examination. To a large extent this shortfall is caused by the failure of large-animal clinicians to relate observed clinical signs to a neuroanatomical location of the lesion. In general, the principles of clinical neurology and their application to large animal neurology has not kept pace with the study of neurology in humans and small animals, although remarkable progress has been made in equine neurology over the last 30 years. This chapter focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and control of large animal diseases primarily affecting the nervous system.
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