4^4 The Ohio Naturalist. [Vol. Vl, No. 4, 



Reports for 1858 and 1873 gave evidence to support this view, 

 including a letter from W. J. Vermilya of Ashland County, who 

 in 1856 had produced trembles and death of a mare by feeding 

 her this weed, also a statement that Mr. John Rowe had fed it to 

 cattle in Madison County, 1839, with the same fatal results. 

 W. C. Mills informs me that Professor Townshend and some of 

 his pupils intended to experiment in feeding this weed. 



The principal objection to Professor Townshend's view 

 appears to have been that white snake-root grows where animals 

 have been pastured for many years without a single case of 

 trembles and this seemed a serious objection to the theory. 



The Eupatoriums are not palatable. Anyone who has 

 tasted boneset will admit that this is true of Eupatorium per- 

 foliatum. In the South I have observed that animals leave 

 Eupatorium serotinum tmtouched even where they have been 

 confined so as to eat almost every other green thing in reach. 

 In northern Ohio I have found Eupatorium ageratoides, the 

 white snake-root, growing abundantly in a number of woods 

 where animals were pastured but no sign of their having eaten it. 

 But if the pasture becomes poor, some are likely to eat it. 



On the 8th of last October I visited a piece of woods in 

 Sandusky County where there was nothing fit for an animal to 

 eat, the principal herbs being nettle, white snake-root, poke and 

 black nightshade, w4th some clearweed, basil, and bedstraw. 

 Every plant of snake-root had been nipped off so that I did not 

 see one more than about half the normal height. This had 

 probably been done by cattle from the adjoining pasture which 

 were doubtless accustomed to spend a portion of hot sunny days 

 in the shade of the woods. A few weeks before my visit a man 

 and his wife who had been using butter made from milk of cows 

 in this pasture had milk-sickness and the wife died. 



Elisha Haff, Townsend Township, Sandusky County, did not 

 think trembles were due to any weed, until he found that western 

 sheep which he turned in his woods ate the white snake-root and 

 died of trembles. Sheep whose ancestors had long been in the 

 region did not eat it and did not have trembles. Since that he 

 has been destroying the weed. 



James Fuller in the same township, in 1874, turned sheep 

 into woods when the ground was covered with snow and all they 

 had to eat was this weed. They contracted the trembles and 

 forty of them died. George Sanford in the same township in 

 January, 1881, lost a horse which could get nothing but snake- 

 root in the woods. He tracked it and saw where it had eaten 

 this weed. A number of dogs from the neighborhood fed on the 

 carcass and all died of the trembles. 



Mr. H. H. Lockwood of Sandusk}^, was the first to describe 

 to me the plant which caused trembles and milk-sickness. His 



