416 CATTLE. 



from the healthy article. A very minute quantity of either will 

 suffice to developc the disease in man. The cream, ordinarily suffi- 

 cient to be added to the coffee drank at a single meal, is said to have 

 induced an attack. The butter or cheese eaten at one repast has fre- 

 quently been known to prove effective. The property is not con- 

 tained in any of the elements of the milk exclusively, but distributed 

 throughout the whole of them, being possessed by the butter-milk as 

 -well as the whey. Beef, in the quantity of a few ounces, will produce 

 the disease, and it is believed in a more violent and fatal form than 

 when it is produced by milk or any of its preparations. 



The effect of the poison is manifested throughout the entire 

 system, and vitiates all the secretions. An experiment, which went 

 far to prove how deeply the milk of other animals is imbued with its 

 poison, was made by administering the infected meat to a bitch suck- 

 ling five puppies. The effect produced in them was very sudden, 

 and the entire litter died in four days, which was two days before the 

 occurrence of the death of the mother. 



The subtle, poisonous principle, of whatever it may be proved to 

 consist, seems to possess the power of Infinite reproda.vxjn, by some 

 vital or chemico-vital action of the system of those aiiim^.^ poisoned 

 by its influence. Thus, suppo;^ing one pound of flesh to prove suffi- 

 cient to produce the death of another animal, it will be found that 

 each pound of flesh of that animal so destroyed, will possess as active 

 powers of destruction, and will, in its turn, serve to contaminate the 

 whole body of another animal in the same degree. 



Dr. J. B. Johnston, of Indiana, says : " I never knew the disease to 

 prevail where there was not a free growth of weeds. I well know 

 that it is circumscribed, that a small section will produce the disease, 

 then an exemption for some distance, when it will again recur. So 

 of some farms ; a portion will produce it, and the other will not. In 

 fact, there is not a county from Floyd to the mouth of the Wabash, 

 and as far north as White River, that is exempt from milk sickness ; 

 and it often occurs in both Southern Illinois and Kentucky. I have 

 never heard of it above the 41st degree of north latitude, and it 

 seldom reaches that line. My firm convictions are, that the disease 

 termed milk sickness is produced by the rhus toxicodendron, or poison 

 oak, and that it is a separate and distinct species from the raaicans, 

 or poison vine. It is further stated that the poison oak never vines — 

 that it is never seen to take hold on trees, and that it grows from one 

 to three feet in height ; that it has three, while the radicans or poison 

 vine has five leaves," 



Dr. Mcllhenny, of Ohio, who has paid much attention to this dis- 

 ease, saj^s : " On the cause of milk sickness, we must be allowed to 

 express our decided conviction, that it is produced by the rhus toxi- 

 ujodendron, or poison oak, for the following reasons : — 



1. Milk sickness d3es not prevail where there is no rhus — that in 



