CICUTA, OR WATER HEMLOOK. if 
record. For example, there seems to be no definite record of poison- 
ing in Montana. Yet in the year 1900 alone, according to Chesnut 
and Wilcox, there were five cases of poisoning of human beings in 
the State, resulting in four fatalities, and a loss of 30 head of cattle 
and 80 sheep. These could not be plotted, as no definite localities 
were given. The writers of this bulletin have been informed of many 
losses of cattle in Colorado, but no accounts were sufficiently definite 
to admit of plotting. 
In regard to sheep, we have a definite local record of only one case 
of poisoning, at Klamath Falls, Oreg. Yet the yearly losses are 
heavy. Figure 1, then, must not be considered as giving more than 
a very incomplete record. 
The greater number of cases recorded in-the East as compared 
with the West is partly due to the greater density of population and 
partly to the special interest taken in the subject in some localities. 
The number of locations in Wisconsin is largely due to the interest 
which Prof. Power took in verifying reported cases in that. State. 
LOSSES OF LIVE STOCK FROM CICUTA POISONING IN THE UNITED STATES. 
There are no data from which we can make a reliable estimate of 
the stock losses from Cicuta poisoning. One man in Oregon, pre- 
sumably estimating the loss in his immediate neighborhood, makes 
it 10 per cent. Slade, 1903, estimates a loss of a hundred head of 
cattle a year in Oregon. 
Chesnut and Wilcox, 1901, say that in 1900 in Montana 30 head of 
cattle and 80 head of sheep were lost. Probably the losses in the 
aggregate are very small. Individual owners of stock have occasion= 
ally lost rather heavily, but the total loss does not compare at all 
with the deaths from other poisonous plants, such plants, for exam- 
ple, as the locos and larkspurs. 
USES OF CICUTA. 
Most plant substances with positive, evident characteristics have 
been assumed to have properties useful in medicine. As would be 
supposed, Cicuta, with its violent toxic character, has attracted 
attention and has been used for a great variety of diseases. Wepfer, 
_ 1679, Chapter XXII, discusses its uses in some detail, but most, if 
not all, that he says refers to Conium rather than Cicuta. 
Gadd, 1774, says that the Finns drive crickets from their homes 
with Cicuta. It may be questioned, however, whether this is any- 
thing more than a story that he had heard. 
In later times Cicuta has been used in medicine to a limited extent. 
Rafinesque, 1828, p. 110, says: 
A few grains have been given in schirrose and scrofulous tumors and ulcers, with 
equal advantage, but a larger dose produces nausea and vomiting; the doses should 
be very small, often repeated, and gradually increased. It has been used as a gargle 
- for sore throat, but safer substances ought to be preferred. 
