454 



East Tennessee it is also found in the foothills, where 

 the pastures are rich and moist and the growth of grass 

 vigorous. There is no doubt that the malady has pre- 

 vailed longer and more extensively in the southern parts 

 of Indiana and Illinois than in any other part of the land. 

 It appeared regularly each year, usually, if not invariably, 

 in the dry, warm weeks of the closing summer, when the 

 streams were low and the water supply was generally 

 stagnant and festering with noxious germs. Human 

 beings and stock besides neat cattle have received 

 the germs of the malady from sources other than the 

 milk or the butter of affected cows. Indeed, people who 

 did not use milk or butter have died o*f the disorder, and 

 swine and dogs that had no access to such food have 

 done the same. In view of these facts the theory may 

 be entertained that the cause is not found in noxious 

 weeds, as has been held by some, nor can if be grass or a 

 mineral poison like arsenic, as has been believed. 



In the second annual report of the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry an account is given of the discoveries made by 

 Dr. Joseph Gardner, of Lawrence County, Indiana, in 

 his investigations of milk sickness. Describing the re- 

 sults of a microscopic examination of the blood from a 

 heifer suffering from the malady. Dr. Gardner said : ** I 

 was startled but not surprised to see that in the small 

 space embraced in the field, and which could be covered 

 by a transverse section of a fine cambric needle, there 

 were countless multitudes of actively moving, writhing, 

 twisting bacteria that bore, in size and behavior, a strik- 

 ing resemblance to that form of bacteria called by natur- 

 alists Bacteria suhtiUissima. They seemed to cling to 

 the blood disks, to be between them, to be within some 

 of them, and to be in such an innumerable multitude 

 as to fairly fill the observer with horror at the bare 

 thought that the blood of even a domesticated animal 

 should have such terrible inmates. Some dogs ate of 



