466 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
LVol. VI, No. 4, 
to a calf which in consequence had the trembles and died. Mrs. 
S. M. Thomson, a niece of Mrs. Deyo who is still living, remem- 
bers that Dr. Deyo took pains to investigate the matter thor- 
oughly at a time when people held conflicting views regarding 
the cause of trembles and was gratified when his efforts resulted 
in convincing them that white snake-root was the cause. She 
thinks that instead of feeding the weed directly to a calf, he fed 
it to a cow thereby producing trembles in both cow and calf and 
the death of the latter. 
Dr. Cowell, a veterinary physician living near Bloomingville, 
Erie County, boiled the white snake-root in milk and gave the 
milk to ]figs which soon died of the trembles. He asked another 
physician, “What ails those pigs?” “Trembles,” was the reply. 
Then he told what he had fed them. 
Dr. John Ray who lived at Whitmore, Sandusky County, 
steeped white snake-root and fed it to a calf which as a result 
died of the trembles. 
I have been told of each of the three cases mentioned above 
by two old residents, who knew the experimenters personally 
and all six of my informants are reliable, though of course, they 
may be in error as to some of the details. There is no doubt 
that the weed experimented with was the white snake-root and 
that the experimenters were fully convinced that it was the 
cause of the trembles. 
Mr. William Ramsdell of Bloomingville informs me that 
about 1842 when there was so much discussion of the subject 
the boys of the neighborhood used to assemble evenings at the 
old lime-kiln southeast of Castalia and experiment on dogs. 
They would boil or steep the white snake-root and putting the 
extract in milk give it to the dogs, in which it would induce the 
trembles; a large number were killed in this way. Some one 
experimented on sheep with the same result. He informs me 
also that a Mr. Redmond (who did not believe that the weed 
was the cause of trembles) chewed some of the weed and died 
after suffering for about four weeks. 
About 1840 Thomas James of Bloomingville caused a calf to 
die of trembles by feeding it a weed he brought from the woods, 
which from the description given me by his daughter and also by 
Isaac Jarrett, I concluded was white snake-root. 
Dr. Carpenter of Castalia, and B. F. Dwelle of Ottawa 
County, also experimented in feeding this weed and were con- 
vinced that it was the cause of the trembles. 
RECENT EXPERIMENTS. 
Cats. 
No. 1. On November 26th my pupil, Oscar Kubach, using 
snake-root I had recently gathered, broke up the stems and 
