466 fAe Ohio Naturalist. [Vol. VI, No. 4, 



to a calf which in consequence had the trembles and died. Mrs. 

 S. M. Thomson, a niece of Mrs. Deyo who is still living, remem- 

 bers that Dr. Deyo took pains to investigate the matter thor- 

 oughly at a time when people held conflicting views regarding 

 the cause of trembles and was gratified when his efforts resulted 

 in convincing them that white snake-root was the cause. She 

 thinks that instead of feeding the weed directly to a calf, he fed 

 it to a cow thereby producing trembles in both cow and calf and 

 the death of the latter. 



Dr. Cowell, a veterinary physician living near Bloomingville, 

 Erie County, boiled the white snake-root in milk and gave the 

 milk to pigs which soon died of the trembles. He asked another 

 physician, "What ails those pigs?" "Trembles," was the reply. 

 Then he told what he had fed them. 



Dr. John Ray who lived at Whitmore, Sandusky County, 

 steeped white snake-root and fed it to a calf which as a result 

 died of the trembles. 



I have been told of each of the three cases mentioned above 

 by two old residents, who knew the experimenters personally 

 and all six of my informants are reliable, though of course, they 

 may be in error as to some of the details. There is no doubt 

 that the weed experimented with was the white snake-root and 

 that the experimenters were fully convinced that it was the 

 cause of the trembles. 



Mr. William Ramsdell of Bloomingville informs me that 

 about 1842 when there was so much discussion of the subject 

 the boys of the neighborhood used to assemble evenings at the 

 old lime-kiln southeast of Castalia and experiment on dogs. 

 They would boil or steep the white snake-root and putting the 

 extract in milk give it to the dogs, in which it would induce the 

 trembles; a large number were killed in this way. Some one 

 ex[)erimented on sheep with the same result. He informs me 

 also that a Mr. Redmond (who did not believe that the weed 

 was the cause of trembles) chewed some of the weed and died 

 after suffering for about four weeks. 



About 1S40 Thomas James of Bloomingville caused a calf to 

 die of trembles by feeding it a weed he brought from the woods, 

 which from the description given me by his daughter and also by 

 Isaac Jarrett, I concluded was white snake-root. 



Dr. Carpenter of Castalia, and B. F. Dwelle of Ottawa 

 County, also experimented in feeding this weed and were con- 

 vinced that it was the cause of the trembles. 



RECENT EXPERIMENTS. 



Cats. 



No. 1. On November 2{)th my pupil, Oscar Kubach, using 

 snake-root I had recently gathered, broke uj) the stems and 



