LUPINES AS POISONOUS PLANTS. 



33 



according to weiglit) would be distinctly different from that com- 

 puted for the same animals in a normal, healthy condition. This 

 may possibly explam why in the cases of Nos. 251 and 280 the dosage, 

 computed on the basis of a 100-pound animal, so much exceeds the 

 lethal dose shown in the precedmg experiments. For example, 

 sheep No. 280 weighed 99 pounds earlier in the season, while at the 

 time of the experiment it weighed only 84 pounds. If the dosage of 

 material given September 4 were computed on the assumption that 

 the animal had its original weight, it would reduce the amount given 

 in the table to approximately the toxic or lethal dose of the preceding 

 animals, and as the margin between no symptoms and toxicity is so 

 small this animal would not differ materially from the others. 



Table 5. — Sheep given forced feedings of lupine fruit in 1914- 



Feed and animal. 



Date fed. 



Pounds fed 

 per 100 



pounds of 

 animal. 



Result. 



Fruit, fully developed: 



No. 292 



July 16 



0.882 

 .441 

 1.322 

 1.764 

 1.543 

 1.433 

 1.543 

 1.433 

 1.763 

 1.543 

 1.541 

 1.761 

 1.901 



1.033 



Not sick. 



■No. 291 



July 17 



Do. 



No. 277 



July 18 



Do. 



No 278 



July 19 



Death 



No. 238 



July 20 



Do. 



No 269 



July 23 





No. 240 



July 24 



Symptoms . 



No 297 



do . . 



No. 256 



July 25 



Death. 



No. 231 



Aug. 29 





No. 235 



Aug. 31 



Do. 



No. 251 



Sept. 2 



Do. 



No. 280 



Sept. 4 



Do. 



Seed heads, fully developed: 



No. 255 



July 28-29 



Do. 









It is evident from Table 5 that approximately 1^ pounds of fully 



developed fruit will produce symptoms or death in a 100-pound 



sheep — that is, it takes three times as much of the fruit to poison as 



of the seed. 



SYMPTOMS. 



Some of the sheep poisoned by lupine, froth at the mouth, but this 

 is by no means a universal symptom. The most noticeable and 

 significant symptom is the character of the breathing. In the milder 

 cases the breathing is heavy and labored, subsidmg into a condition 

 of coma in which the animal may continue for a long time, snoring 

 as though in a deep sleep. If able to stand, the animal may fall 

 over in its sleep. In the more acute cases, there are severe attacks 

 of dyspnoea, during which the animal throws itself about violently 

 in its attempts to breath(\ During these attacks the tongue and 

 mouth become cyanotic from the congested peripheral blood ves- 

 sels. Sometimes in these attacks of dysj)na;a the animal dies in 

 convulsions ra which the limbs are exicaided rigidly, much as when 

 poisoned by strychnin. In other cases the condition of coma deep- 



