350 CORNSTALK DISEASE 



The disease is very insidious, frequently causing the 

 death of the animals before its presence is suspected. Cattle 

 that act perfectly well at night are dead on the following morn- 

 ing. Usually all the animals in a herd that die of this affection 

 perish in a single night or, at the longest, within a few days 

 after the first death occurs. It is generally believed to be 

 invariably fatal and its symptomatology has not been fulh- 

 determined. 



§271. History. This affection of cattle has been known 

 to exist for many years. The time and place of its origin, 

 however, are not known, but it seems to be peculiar to the 

 United States and to have first appeared west of the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains. We are told of its occurrence in the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley forty or more years ago. It made extensive 

 ravages in 1864-65 and again in 1868. From an historical 

 standpoint, no positive statements can be made concerning it 

 prior to 1868, when the first recorded investigations into its 

 nature and cause were made. After that time the disease 

 seems to have escaped the attention of investigators until 1889, 

 when Billings, of the Agricultural Experiment Station ot 

 Nebraska, published the results of his investigations. 



In 1868, Gamgee was employed by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture to investigate this disease. The 

 " smut theory' " of its etiology appears to have been the pre- 

 vailing one at that time and consequently Gamgee's report 

 deals almost exclusively with the effect of improperly prepared 

 food, smuts and the like. Corn smut was unusuallj^ abundant 

 in 1868 and he carried out experiments to test its etiological 

 value with the conclusion "that smut is not a very active 

 poi.son in combination with wholesome food." 



In 1889, Billings described the cornstalk disease as an 

 " acute extraorganismal septicaemia, due to micro-organisms 

 belonging to the class of ovoid-belted germs, to which variety 

 of disease also belongs the swine plague, southern cattle 

 plague, Wildseuche, hog cholera, and yellow fever in man." 

 From the organs of cattle dead of the disease he reported to 

 have invariably isolated a bacillus which he affirms to be its 

 cause. He identified the bacillus which he found in the animal 



