CEREBROSPINAL MENINGITIS (" FORAGE POISONING"). 7 



colt fed experimentally upon some of the moldy corn, which was 

 held responsible for the serious outbreak in Kansas in 1890, developed 

 the disease and died on the twenty-sixth day. Again, the Kansas 

 outbreak of 1906 was said by Haslam to have been produced by 

 immature ears of corn mfected by molds, although the exact mold 

 was not discovered. By feeding horses upon this immature com 

 badly infected with molds, typical fatal cases of staggers were pro- 

 duced m four out of seven horses. Haslam a,lso records the fact 

 that severe losses of horses have occurred in other States when the 

 grasses in the pastures became moldy. Klimmer, commenting upon 

 the negative results obtained in experiments with moldy feed, asserts 

 that the numerous losses occurring from the feeding of such material 

 indicates the probability that the experiments were not sufficiently 

 extensive from which to draw conclusions, and beheves that the use 

 of such feed should be discouraged. Among other writers who have 

 attributed the disease to toxic fungi are Michener, Trumbower, and 

 Harbaugh. The latter investigated the serious outbreak of this 

 disease which occurred in Virginia and North Carolina in 1886, and 

 claimed that every case of the disease could be traced directly to 

 moldy feed. 



This theory of toxic fungi is not antagonistic to the facts in many 

 of the best observed outbreaks, and loiowing that fungi vary greatly 

 in growth and in the elimination of various products under different 

 climatic conditions, we may explain the irregularity of the symptoms 

 as well as the occurrence of the disease under what may appear* to be 

 identical conditions. Thus Ceni of Italy states that molds are capable 

 of producing poisons, but only at certain stages of their growth, and 

 at other times they are entirely inactive. A case of this character 

 was investigated by this bureau several years ago in an outbreak 

 among the United States Army horses at an encampment in Penn- 

 sylvania. Many horses had died of cerebrospinal meningitis as a 

 result of eating moldy baled hay, and as soon as the hay was elimi- 

 nated the deaths ceased. Other horses in the vicinity not fed upon 

 this hay failed to contract the disease. At the suggestion of State 

 Veterinarian Marshall the bales were opened and exposed to the sun 

 for three or four weeks, after which time this hay was fed sparingly 

 at first and later in usual quantities without producing any ill effect. 

 Forage poisoning therefore seems to be an auto-intoxication rather 

 than an infection, and due to certain chemical poisons or toxins 

 formed by organismal activity. These toxins may be present when 

 the forage is taken into the body or formed in the gastro-intestinal 

 canal, and, therefore, the disease is a specific form of auto-intoxication. 

 The nature of the substance which causes these harmful changes or 

 the poisonous bodies that are formed remain unknown. 



