* * *
noun
a fatal disease of cattle that affects the central nervous system; causes staggering and agitation
• Hypernyms: ↑animal disease
* * *
abbreviationbovine spongiform encephalopathy herein
* * *
abbrev
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
* * *
bovine spongiform encephalopathy: a serious disease in cows that affects the nervous system and causes death. Meat from cows that have BSE is believed to cause CJD in humans.
Thesaurus: diseases affecting animalshyponym
* * *
BSE,
bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
* * *
abbr. bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a usually fatal disease of cattle affecting the central nervous system, causing agitation and staggering. It is thought to be caused by an agent such as a prion or a virino, and its possible connection with Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease in humans is still much debated. Also (popularly) called mad cow disease
* * *
the abbreviation for ‘bovine spongiform encephalopathy ’ (a brain disease of cows that causes death)
See also: ↑mad cow disease
Culture:
In the 1980s many British cows were found to have the disease, and thousands of them were destroyed. Scientists believe it was caused by feeding the cows with parts of sheep that had a similar disease (called scrapie), and that people can catch another similar disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), by eating the meat of cows with BSE. For a time in the 1990s many people stopped eating British beef, and many countries refused to import it.
Useful english dictionary. 2012.