LOCLE, WM', LE. A town of the Canton of Neuchatel. Switzerland. situated on the French frontier, five miles southwest of Chaux-de-Fonds (Map: Switzerland. A 11. The town has been re built since a fire in 1833, and contains among its educational buildings an imposing college, a watchmaking institute, a mechanical school, vari ous secondary and industrial schools, besides pos sessing industrial, scientific, and art museums, and a library. The streets are lighted by elec tricity. The chief industry is watchmaking, for which the town has long been famed. Popula tion, in 1900, 12,600.
LOCO (Sp., crazy) DISEASE. A disease of sheep, horses, and occasionally cattle, caused by certain species of Astragalus, a genus of the nat ural order Leguminosx, popularly known as loco or crazy weeds, and widely distributed over the grazing ranges of the Rocky Alountains, where they occasion extensive losses. The most com mon species are Astragalus inollissimus and Astragalus spieatus. The disease may be called a pernicious habit, which is readily acquired by healthy animals through imitation of locoed ani mals, consisting in the persistent search for and almost exclusive feeding upon loco-weeds. Ani mals that have once contracted the habit and are confined in fields or pastures free from loco weeds in order to effect a cure soon return to the old habit when turned out to range. They are therefore of no value as range stock. The first effects are stimulant. I nit continued use produces
opposite results. The disease may appear in an acute or a chronic form. In the acute form the animal manifests signs of vertigo, moves about in circles, champs the jaws, and seems to he more or less deaf and blind. Death may occur within three days. ln the chronic form the ani mal may linger for months or even years, losing flesh. exhibiting muscular incoordination and various nervous symptoms, finally becoming un able to walk, and dying of starvation or exhaus tion. Locoed sheep sometimes "shed the fleece. Locoed horses generally stand by themselves on the range; usually move about very little (hiring the later stages; sometimes they do not drink oftener than once in two or three weeks; fre quently they are unsteady and stiff and unduly frightened by ordinary objects; and when driven may run away at any time without apparent rea son. No medicinal treatment for loco disease has been discovered, but potassium permanganate may be administered in acute cages to oxidize and destroy the poisonous alkaloid contained in loco weeds. Locoed sheep should be confined in feed ing corrals and fattened upon alfalfa and roots for market; locoed horses may develop, under judicious feeding, into valuable work-animals. All animals addicted to eating loeo-weeds should be separated from their companions in order to check the spread of the habit.