A disease in sheep with seasonal occurrence in the municipalities of Rancho Queimado and Ponte Alta do Sul, State of Santa Catarina, characterized by nervous manifestations and rapid death is described. The disease was reproduced experimentally in sheep giving the leaves of Erythroxylum deciduum collected in summer, at lethal doses from 10g/kg on. In one experiment in sheep with the fruits, the dose of 15g/kg was lethal. The onset of symptoms occurred within 2 hours after administration of the leaves, and the poisoning had a course from 10 minutes to 18 hours. Doses up to 20g/kg of leaves collected in winter caused slight signs of poisoning in two sheep. In the experiments, the clinical signs were depression and somnolence, and when the animals were moved, motor incoordination, imbalance, falls, difficulty to get up, and station with open legs; intense salivation, regurgitation, bruxism, increased heart rate and breathing was also observed. The clinical signs and death were exacerbated when the sheep were moved. The animals that died by the spontaneous and experimental poisoning did not show important gross lesions or microscopic alterations. It was concluded that the cut of the tree, allows growth of sprouts from the stems, encouraging the sheep to eat the plant. This fact and the availability of ripe fruits that fall off the trees can be made responsible for the poisoning with nervous signs of sheep, which occurs during the summer months in the state of Santa Catarina.
Poisonous plants; Erythroxylum deciduum; "cocão"; Erythroxylaceae; plant poisoning; sheep
