522 
MILK SICKNESS. 
A rather peculiar disease, called “ milk sickness,” is found in the 
central part of the United States, where it at times occurs as an epi- 
demic among cattle and people. In cattle the first indication of dis- 
ease is dullness, followed by violent trembling and great weakness, 
which increases during the succeeding day until the animal becomes 
paralyzed and dies. Through the ingestion of flesh, milk, or dairy 
products of an affected animal the disease is transmitted to man or to 
another animal, and attacks produced in this way most frequently 
prove fatal. In man the disease develops with marked weariness, 
vomiting, retching, and insatiable thirst. Eespirations become la- 
bored, peristalsis ceases, the temperature is subnormal, and the patient 
becomes apathetic. Paralysis gradually follows and death takes place 
quietly without rigor mortis. 
Many efforts have been made to elucidate the question regarding 
the nature and cause of this disease, but although many theories have 
been discussed none of them has so far been generally accepted. Some • 
investigators hold that the disease is of micro-organismal origin, some j 
that it is due to autointoxication, while others think it is caused by 
vegetable or mineral poisons. All seem to agree, however, that the 
disease is limited to low, swampy, uncultivated land, and that the 
area of the places where it occurs is often restricted to one or a few 
acres. Furthermore, when such land or pastures have been cultivated 
and drained the disease disappears completel}^ 
The discovery of a new focus of this disease in the Pecos Valley 
of New Mexico in November, 1907, gave Jordan and Harris “ the 
opportunity of studying this peculiar affection by modern bacterio- 
logical methods. As a result they have succeeded in isolating in 
pure cultures from the blood and organs of animals dead of this dis- 
ease a spore-forming bacillus which they name ‘‘^Bacillus lactimorhi.'’'’ 
With this bacillus they have reproduced in experiment animals the 
symptoms and lesions peculiar to milk sickness or trembles, and from 
these animals the same organism has been recovered in purity. It | 
therefore appears to have been demonstrated that the bacillus in \ 
question is the actual cause of the disease. As Jordan and Harris i 
have already indicated, more comprehensive studies, based on a | 
larger supply of material, are desirable in order that the many ob- 
scure and mystifying features connected with the etiology of this I 
rapidly disappearing disease may be elucidated. j 
From the above facts it seems evident that milk sickness is an 
infectious disease communicable to man, and the cattle owners should I 
I 
<^The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. L, No. 21, May 23, 
1908. 
