CORN-STALK DISEASE. 
669 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
CORN-STALK DISEASE. 
(A Paper read by G. A. Johnson, Y.S., at the Annual Meeting of the Iowa State 
Veterinary Medical Association.) 
Mr. President and Gentlemen :—It is nearing that time of 
the year when our offices are frequented by farmers who are 
anxious to learn or ascertain if the veterinary profession has 
learned anything new relative to the cause of the yearly loss 
of stock when it is first turned into corn-stalk fields to graze. 
And how few of the veterinarians have ever taken any pains 
to investigate the cause of this trouble, or even keep up with 
the progress that has been made, though slow, as the investi¬ 
gations have been carried on by a few veterinarians, whom 
the old theory of “one hour a day in the field, with plenty of 
water and salt,” did not satisfy. 
And what a large majority have been contented to rely on 
works written in England—where corn does not grow, and 
consequently the trouble can not exist—for the pathology and 
treatment of this disease, and as a result have advocated and 
treated according to the old, dry, American theory, a theory 
that is supported by only one pathological lesion, i. e., a dry 
and impacted condition of the third stomach—a condition 
which Professor Williams claims is natural in all cases of ob¬ 
stinate constipation in rumens. (Principles and Practice Vet. 
Med. p. 424). And this impaction is often found by later 
investigators to be absent; although the contents may be dry 
and hard, there is very rarely any engorgement. 
But the pathologist finds that this affection of the third 
stomach is not the only lesion that is usually found, but that 
the viscera is more or less affected, a fact that usually escapes 
the eye of the uneducated. 
During the outbreak of this disease that occurred in Soc 
Co., Iowa, in the fall of 1889, the majority of the cases did not 
live more than six hours, and many not more than two hours 
lifter they first showed symptoms of the disease, and all 
