230 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



The second objection was that ergot did not produce dry gangrene in 

 animals; and this statement has been repeated again and again by 

 professional men who certainly ought to have known better. The quo- 

 tations from standard authorities as to the effects of ergot and the 

 historical compilation contained in other sections of this report will be 

 sufficient, I believe, to satisfactorily dispose of these assertions. 



Again, it was said that it required enormous quantities of ergot to 

 produce appreciable effects on cattle, and even if it could in that case 

 cause dry gangrene, the quantity found in the Kansas hay was totally 

 insufficient to account for these results. To this 1 reply that ergot in 

 different seasons is known to differ widely in its poisonous qualities ; 

 that certain conditions, such as extremely cold weather and deficiency 

 of drinking water, undoubtedly increase its effects in a very important, 

 degree, and that, finally, we do not know how much is actually neces- 

 sary to cause dry gangrene. Careful estimates of the quantity of ergot 

 in the hay in Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas show that these cattle must 

 have taken with their food from 3 to 4 ounces of this poison each day. 

 The dose of ergot recommended by standard veterinary authorities as 

 safe for medical purposes is about one ounce for grown animals, but it 

 is not expected that this would be used for more than one or two days 

 together. The diseased cattle, therefore, had taken from three to four 

 full doses of ergot a day, and continued this for days and weeks. Con- 

 sidering that the action of ergot is to diminish the caliber of the blood- 

 vessels, that the gangrene of the extremities is directly traceable to 

 deficient blood supply, and that atmospheric cold also has a marked 

 tendency in this direction; that, in addition to all this, the drinking 

 places were frozen over, and the holes that were cut through the ice 

 were only kept open a short time each day, it would appear that the 

 conditions were very favorable for the development of ergot poisoning. 



Then it was reported that the outbreak in Osborne County was cer- 

 tainly the same disease, and that the cattle had been pasturing on green 

 rye and consequently could not get ergot. A few inquiries brought out 

 tlie fact, however, that the rye pasture had only been in use for three 

 weeks, while the disease had appeared at least six weeks previously. 

 There was no reliable information as to what these cattle had been 

 eating before the appearance of the disease, and the forage was not 

 examined by any competent person. 



"If this disease is due to ergot poison, 1 ' says one gentleman, "why 

 then is this the first outbreak, since the Kansas farmers have fed this 

 same kind of hay to their cattle from the first settlement of the State?" 

 But who knows that they have ever before fed hay containing as much 

 ergot 1 ? In Europe the enzootics of ergotism have at times been a cen- 

 tury apart, and it is a well known fact that it is only in occasional years 

 that these enormous quantities of ergot are produced. Then how can 

 it be known that this is the first outbreak of the disease in Kansas I 

 Cattle have frequently suffered with the same symptoms iu New York, 

 Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Missouri, and why not also in Kansas t Who 

 outside of the immediate vicinity of the suffering herds would have 

 heard of the outbreak under consideration had it not been for the mis- 

 taken diagnosis that led the country to fear the presence of a dangerous 

 contagious disease I 



Again, would not this reasoning apply to any supposed cause of the 

 disease as well as to ergot? No matter what produced the disease, if 

 such an outbreak has never occurred before it might be said with just 

 as much force, "Why, then, is this the first outbreak?" 



"Again," the same gentleman goes on to say, "on Mr. Goodrich's 



