397 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ENDEMIC DISEASE IN AMERICA, FROM DISEASED MILK 
AND MEAT. 
Sir, — In the editorial article upon “The Relations of 
Food and Disease/’ you ask, “ Can fifty, nay twenty, well- 
marked instances be adduced, indicating that any disease has 
originated in the child, the man, or the woman, from the use 
of diseased milk V 9 And again, “ Can fifty, nay twenty, 
carefully observed instances be enumerated in which, from 
the eating of diseased flesh, well-marked signs of any special 
and communicable disease has originated ?” 
Permit me to state, in reply to these questions, that there 
is an endemic disease frequently observed in many parts of 
the United States, especially, I believe, in the states of 
Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, which affects both 
man and cattle ; but the former only from eating the milk 
and its products, and the flesh of the latter. 
The symptoms in both are alike, and correspond in degree 
of severity, and are such as are produced by the narcotico- 
acrid class of poisons. 
The disease is attributed, in cattle, to something eaten or 
drunk by them, the nature of which has never been satis- 
factorily ascertained, though most diligent inquiry has 
frequently been made. Some suppose it to be ow 7 ing to a 
poisonous herb, growing in certain low, marshy localities, 
which the cattle take as food; others suppose it to be a 
poisonous vine, growing in the same localities. The theory 
of miasma has its ardent supporters, w 7 hile others, again, 
think that the drinking of stagnant or otherwise poisonous 
water is the cause. But all that is known with certainty is, 
that cattle feeding in certain low marshy localities are attacked 
with symptoms, such as are produced by the class of poisons 
referred to — vomiting, purging, extreme nervous agitation, 
&c. ; and this last very marked symptom has given the 
popular name of u trembles” to the disease in cattle. 
I believe it is only met with in cattle during the summer 
and autumn, and is more common and virulent some years 
than others, especially after an unusually hot and dry 
season. 
Now, as to the effects upon man from eating the milk or 
its products, and the flesh of animals labouring under the 
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