REMEDIES 263 



by sheep depends upon the condition of the ground and the 

 ease with which the bulb can be pulled up. Ordinarily the 

 bulbs are pulled out of the ground with difficulty. 



Amount Required to Cause Death. — The amount of death 

 camas required to cause death depends upon the size and idio- 

 syncrasies of the animal, and whether it is very hungry or not. 

 A mature sheep must eat from i| to 5 pounds of the plant to 

 cause fatal poisoning, and lambs correspondingly less. Ex- 

 periments have shown that the fatal amount was less when given 

 as a drench or by forced feeding than when mixed with other 

 forage. The amount of the plant required to produce poisoning 

 also depends upon the length of time over which feeding extends. 

 It is likely that sheep are poisoned by a smaller amount when 

 they are grazing in the open than when they are fed in corrals. 

 The poisonous or fatal amount for cattle and horses is prac- 

 tically the same as for sheep, in proportion to the size and 

 weight of the animal. 



Symptoms of Poisoning. — The more pronounced general 

 symptoms of death camas poisoning in the higher animals are 

 frothing at the mouth, vomiting, restlessness, weakened heart 

 action, irregular, spasmodic breathing, convulsions, bloating, 

 weakness of the muscles shown in a staggering gait and inability 

 to rise when down, and general paralysis (Fig. 89). The symp- 

 toms are not uniform in all poisoned animals, however; they 

 vary according to the manner in which the poison was admin- 

 istered, and with the length of the illness. Animals sometimes 

 lie unconscious for several hours before death. 



Remedies. — A large number of logical remedies for death 

 camas poisoning have been tried, and, although some have seemed 

 to be beneficial in experimental treatment under favorable 

 conditions, most of them are not only impracticable for treating 

 a band of sheep on the range, but are more expensive than the 

 animals. Bleeding, a remedy commonly used by herders, is 

 useless. Any antidote is ineffective unless given as soon as 

 symptoms of poisoning appear, for the poison cannot be counter- 

 acted after it leaves the stomach. Medical tests carefully con- 

 ducted by workers in the United States Department of Agri- 



