DISEASES OF COWS. 453 



frequent cases perish, by the poisoning. Male cattle take 

 the disease, which poisons the flesh and renders it un- 

 wholesome for food, while cows enjoy impunity in the 

 escape of the poison through the milk. 



Half a century ago, when there were far more undrained 

 swamp, impure water, and malaria than there are now, 

 there were many more cases of the disorder than there 

 have been of recent years. Then the very buzzards, the 

 hogs, the turkeys, and the dogs and cats that ate of 

 the carcasses of animals which had died of the disease 

 themselves died of milk sickness. Cats, dogs, calves, 

 and chickens that drank the milk or ate the flesh of cows 

 suffering from the malady staggered around weakly for 

 days and died. Many people died of the disease, induced 

 by eating butter or drinking milk from diseased cows. ' 



Then the theory was held that the ailment was caused 

 by eating some plant that appeared late in the season. 

 Others believed that the cause might be found in the 

 earth licked up by the stock at what are known as salt- 

 licks. Still others believed that cattle were poisoned by 

 eating grass on which some mineral, carried up with 

 moisture from the earth during the warm hours of the 

 day, settled with the dew in the cool evening and night ; 

 and yet others were of the opinion that the disease was 

 induced by the drinking of water from stagnant pools 

 or from impure streams. The early settler sometimes 

 fenced about the spots where observation taught him 

 the germs of the malady lurked. In time the land 

 around these spots was plowed and seeded, water was 

 drained off, and the fences rotted and fell, the plow com- 

 pleted the work of purification, and the previous existence 

 of the disease was forgotten. 



Milk sickness is known in many of the States lying 

 east of the Mississippi River; it also exists on the north 

 side of the Blue Ridge and among its foothills in Western 

 North Carolina and Georgia. In the great valley of 



