Feb., 1906.] 
The Cause of Trembles in Cattle. 
465 
ancestors settled on the peninsula north of Sandusky Bay in 
1812. For many years trembles occurred among the stock. 
He believes that from their own observation they concluded it 
was caused by their eating snake-root which they would do only 
in a dry season when the pasture was poor. 
About 1872 Mr. David Barber in Margaretta Township, when 
he was hauling wood with a sleigh, left the gate open into the 
woods. Sheep got in and, though they were there hardly more 
than two hours, a number had trembles and some died. The 
snake-root was the principal plant in these woods. Mr. Barber 
did not notice that they ate it but supposed at the time that they 
were poisoned by something they found by pawing through the 
snow. These woods were notorious for the great number of 
horses, cattle and sheep which contracted the trembles in them. 
Mr. Barber told me that he had noticed this weed was abundant 
wherever trembles prevailed. I had already found this true of 
the woods I had examined. 
In 1904 Louis Quinn had twenty-seven steers pastured in a 
large woods in Townsend. All had the trembles and nine died. 
The woods were known to be dangerous and so j\Ir. Quinn has 
been accustomed to leave stock there no later than June 1st. 
This time he left them about a week longer and had more of 
them than usual so that they were harder pressed for food. In 
these woods I found white snake-root more abundant than anv 
other dicotyl. I saw thousands of them in a walk of a few min- 
utes while plants fit to eat were scarce. Nearly all the woods 
in that part of the township are considered unsafe and are 
pastured only early in the season if at all. In woods near Mr. 
Quinn’s six lambs died of trembles this year. White snake-root 
was found abundant in all the woods examined in that region 
with one notable exception. In the woods of Orlando Ransom 
I could not find a single specimen, though a boy who was assist- 
ing me found one. June grass was growing in every part. Mr. 
Ransom told me the woods had been pastured for the past fifty 
years and no trembles had occurred. I also learned from sev- 
eral sources that trembles were unknown west of Pickerel Creek 
which is three miles west of Quinn’s woods. I examined woods 
just east of this creek, but found no snake-root and learned that 
they were pastured with impunity. West of the creek I could 
find no snake-root in the first two woods examined, in the third 
after walking nearly a quarter of a mile I found four or five 
plants, in the fourth none, and in the fifth many in one place and 
a few others scattered about. 
E.\RLY EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING THE WEED. 
About 1843 John Palmer Deyo, “a scientific investigator and 
prominent physician,” living near Bellevue fed white snake-root 
