Milk Sickness. " The Trembles ^ 327 



munities being swept off as recorded of Pigeon Creek, by Nico- 

 lay and Hay in their History of Abraham Lincoln. According 

 to these writers it was "a malignant form of fever. — attributed 

 variously to malaria, and to the eating of poisonous herbs by the 

 cattle — attacking cattle as well as human beings, attended with 

 violent retching and a burning sensation in the stomach, and 

 often terminating fatally on the third day." Even in theise early 

 days settlers were loathe to acknowledge the existence of the 

 infection on their lands, doubtless because it depreciated them, 

 and to-day with a better knowledge of the necessary precaution- 

 ary measures, it has literally disappeared in many places, so that 

 it is now difficult to find a case. 



Contagion. That the disease has been transmitted through the 

 milk from animals to man and other animals has been too pain- 

 fully evident from the first, but no specific microorganism has 

 been found to be constantly present, capable of pure culture in 

 artificial media and of causing the disease when transferred from 

 such media to a new victim. Naturally all sorts of theories have 

 been advanced, no one of which has been demonstrably proved. 

 It has been attributed to eating of poison ivy (Rhus toxicoden- 

 dron) by the cattle, as this plant was usually found on the in- 

 fecting lands, but rhus is also common throughout New England 

 and the Eastern States where milk sickness is unknown. It has 

 been claimed that it was due to mineral agents, especially nickel, 

 in the water but the mineral salts in the water are not removed 

 by culture of the surface .soil, which puts an end to milk sickness. 

 Phillips (1876) claimed to have found the cause in an actively 

 motile spirillum in the blood, but he had examined the blood of 

 but one patient, and it has not been found in other patients by 

 subsequent observers. Bitting found a bacillus but further re- 

 search has not determined its constancy. 



Beach furnishes a series of observations which should be useful 

 in seeking to estimate the value of any theory propounded. ist. 

 Milk sickness is a disea,se of dry .seasons. 2. In unusually dry 

 seasons it is dangerous to leave domestic animals out over night 

 in the localities where the disease is prevalent. 3d. It has never 

 "been considered dangerous for animals to pasture on such lands 

 in the day time. 4th. Cattle in one field will haDitually escape, 

 and in another with apparently exactly the same conditions and 



