RATTLEWEED OR LOCO-DISEASE. 
397 
made a sudden plunge towards the boy, who had to run for his life; 
one moment later he approached him from the side without dan¬ 
ger. This would indicate a hallucination. When left alone the 
animals will stand quiet, stupid, with head down, half asleep, 
like comatous, and might be standing thus much of the time for a 
whole week, with head often resting against some object. The 
head might be drawn towards the breast or stretched out. 
The appetite diminishes with the progress of the disease. 
Although tolerably good yet in the period of over excitement, 
still the animals will lose flesh gradually and become poorer as 
the disease advances, so that when the coma sets in, they will 
stop eating altogether, and become entirely emaciated and die at 
last from sheer exhaustion and cachexia. 
The artery is very small, depressed, indicating a very poor 
flow of blood; pulse so feeble that it cannot be taken; pulsation 
of heart also very weak, cannot be counted with the hand, but on 
auscultation I was able to count thirty-eight pulsations; respira¬ 
tion five, vesicular murmur in lungs inaudible, pulse various, visi¬ 
ble at distance. 
Causes .—There is no doubt but that this disease is caused by 
the loco-plant or rattleweed. Prof. Sayre of the Kansas State 
University, Department of Pharmacy, gives a full description of 
the plant and says that the crazy-weed means only two plants, the 
Astragalus Mollissimus and Oxytropis Lamberti, both belonging 
to the natural order of Leguminosse. They grow on high 
grounds or rather dry soil which is also gravelly and sandy ; they 
can be found also in the valleys, especially on uncultivated laud, 
alongside the public roads and railroads. Every few years they 
make their appearance again on cultivated lands, when they are 
cut with the crop, thrashed and mixed with grain and straw. 
That explains how this disease is absent for a few years and then 
again becomes very violent, as I have remarked it around Modesto 
and the whole San Joaquin Yalley. But in large pastures that 
are never plowed up, and where the ^plants are growing year in, 
year out, the stock is liable to eat it in the summer when feed is 
short. They bloom about June and bear a bright colored flower, 
yellow or bluish purple color, one foot and a half to two feet 
