66 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



are said to be temperature higher tlian normal, loss of appetite, 

 bloody discharges from mouth, nose, and bowels, and great depres- 

 sion followed by coma and death. Some authors say that the urine 

 is colored by blood. It is thought by some that the disease known as 

 " red water " in the northwestern United States and Canada is 

 caused by eating ferns. 



SORGHUM POISONING. 



Under certain conditions sorghum contains enough hydrocyanic 

 acid to make it exceedingly dangerous to cattle. These cases of poi- 

 soning most commonly occur when cattle are pastured upon the 

 young plant or upon a field where the crop has been cut and is mak- 

 ing a second growth. Conditions of drought make the sorghum 

 especially dangerous. There is some reason to think that the frosted 

 second growth is particularly rich in hydrocyanic acid. The cases 

 of poisoning occur when animals are grazed upon the plant, but not 

 from the harvested crop or from silage. If cattle are grazed on 

 sorghum or sorglium stubble they should at first be under constant 

 observation and should be removed as soon as any signs of illness 

 appear. Similar precautions should be used in grazing kafir. 



CORNSTALK DISEASE. 



Considerable losses of cattle have occurred when they were turned 

 upon cornfields in the fall. Deaths come very suddenly and there 

 is no opportunity to apply remedies. It has been thought that these 

 fatalities, like those from sorghum, were caused by hydrocj'-anic acid, 

 but there is good reason to think that this is not true, and at the 

 present time there is no accepted explanation of this disease, al- 

 though there seems to be no doubt that it is connected in some way 

 with the condition of the corn. TVHiether a given field is poisonous 

 or not can only be determined by experiment, and the wise farmer 

 will keep his cattle under close observation when they are first turned 

 into a cornfield. 



WATER HEMLOCK (CICUTA). 



This plant, growing in wet places by ditches and along creeks, 

 is the most poisonous of North American plants. The root is the 

 poisonous part, and cattle generally get ii when it is plowed up or 

 washed out by high water. Sometimes they pull it up, for the plant 

 occasionally grows out into ditches so that the whole plant will be 

 taken in grazing. The most marked symptoms of Cicuta poisoning 

 are the violent convulsions, which remind one of the ejffect of 

 strychnin. 



