LARKSPUR POISOl^riNG OP LIVE STOCK. 3 



It is in North America that practically all the losses of domestic 

 animals from this plant have occurred, and even here the published 

 records are brief and of comparatively recent date. Complaints of 

 losses came, by letter, to the United States Department of Agricul- 

 culture many years ago, and newsjDaper reports of losses have not 

 been uncommon. Philip Miller, in 1760, says of a larkspur, which 

 must be Delphinium exaltatum Alton : " This plant grows naturally 

 in most parts of North America, where, when the cattle happen to 

 feed upon the leaves, it occasions great disorders in them." There 

 seems to have been no other published statement of the poisoning of 

 cattle until the paper by Aven Nelson, 1896, page 79, who said that 

 Delfhiniurrh geyeri Greene is " frequently greedily eaten by hungry 

 cattle with fatal results, caused by bloating.-' Earlier, in 1889, 

 Irish, page 25, reported the feeding of cattle upon larkspur with no 

 results. Wilcox, in 1897, published his paper on the poisoning of' 

 sheep by larkspur, and this was republished in the Fifteenth Annual 

 Eeport of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 1898. He says, pages 

 39 to 43, that from a band of 2,000 yearling lambs, about 50 died 

 and between 500 and 600 showed signs of sickness. Autopsies were 

 made upon the dead animals, and in the stomach contents were found 

 the stems, leaves, and roots of DelphiniuTn nhemiesii D. C.^ An ex- 

 amination was made of the range over which the sheep had been 

 passing and it was found that the larkspur grew in considerable 

 abundance, and there was evidence that the sheep had been feeding 

 almost exclusively where there was a large quantity of larkspur. 

 Not only that, but it was clear that they had eaten freely of the 

 plant. An examination showed that the plants broke off readily 

 above the root and the inference was that the grazing had been 

 largely of the upper part of the plant, very little of the root having 

 been consumed. After a careful inspection of the other plants upon 

 the range the conclusion was reached that there was no other plant 

 which could be responsible for these cases. Wilcox sums up the 

 results in the following words : 



Thus the post-mortem condition of the sheep, tlae finding of larkspur in the 

 stomachs of the dead sheep, and the evidence from the field work that the 

 larkspur had been eaten by them seemed to indicate conclusively that the 

 larkspur was the cause of the trouble. 



He then gives in some detail the symptoms of larkspur poison- 

 ing in sheep, which correspond very closely with the observations 

 of other authors upon larkspur poisoning. In order to make the 

 work more conclusive, extracts of larkspur were made upon the range 

 of Mr. Vestal, at Bigtimber, Mont. The chloroform extract of 25 

 grams of the dried plant was fed to a lamb, producing symptoms of 



i This is probably incorrectly determined and should be Delphinium Mcolor. 



