Dec. 2 4 , i9i7 Eupatorium urticaefolium as a Poisonous Plant 713 
the plant, and lost 8 lambs that had developed the trembles. In 1856 
he fed the plant to a mare, beginning the feeding on October 12. Symp¬ 
toms of trembles were very pronounced on October 21, and on the 23d 
the animal died. During the illness the animal was examined by three 
doctors, two farriers, and other citizens, and all agreed that the mare 
had the trembles. 
William Jerry, of Madison County, Ill., in 1867 published in the 
Missouri Republican a statement which was reprinted in the Medical 
and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia (jj), that he had been made 
violently ill with symptoms of milk sickness by eating E. ageratoides 
prepared as greens. He also produced sickness in a dog by a decoction 
of the plant. Sawyer in the same number of the magazine says that 
he has experimental evidence that the plant will produce in animals a 
disease very similar to milk sickness. 
Moseley in 1906, in a detailed article (10), in which he states positively 
that E. ageratoides is the cause of trembles in animals and of milk sick¬ 
ness in man, relates may cases of poisoning of animals by the plant in 
Ohio pastures, and gives details of his own successful experiments with 
the plant and with extracts, using as experimental animals cats, dogs, 
rabbits, and sheep. 
Crawford in 1908 (4) discusses Moseley's investigations and records 
a series of experiments on rabbits, cats, dogs, sheep, and man, for the 
most part made with extracts, from which he draws the conclusion 
that E. ageratoides is not the cause of milk sickness. 1 
Brooks in 1914 (2) states that his experiments show that both cattle 
and sheep are poisoned by the plant, the sheep being the more sus¬ 
ceptible. He states that an animal must eat about 10 per cent of its 
weight in order to be poisoned. 
Clay (3) fed two head of cattle and one sheep on fresh-cut material 
of the plant, and all died within three days with symptoms of trembles. 
The results obtained by these authors were so concordant that it now 
seems strange that more importance was not attached to them. The 
experiments of Vermilya were especially conclusive. The fact that in 
the coves mentioned by Drake no bad results followed the pasturing of 
cattle is, of course, only negative evidence. 
Even in the experiments by Crawford, from which he concluded that 
the plant was not harmful, an examination of the cases shows that of 
the eight rabbits tested with extracts four died and one other exhibited 
trembling of the muscles. The cat used was sick. The dog and sheep 
used showed no symptoms, but the doses given were very small. The 
same thing was true of the dose given to himself, for, granted that he 
weighed 150 pounds, the dosage was only 0.44 of 1 per cent of his weight. 
1 In 1909 ( 11 ) and 1910 ( 12 ), in papers intended to prove that aluminium phosphate in plants is the cause 
of milk sickness, Moseley details other successful experiments with feeding the plant to rabbits and cows 
and claims to have produced the disease in rabbits and cats from the milk of diseased animals, in cats by 
butter, and in cats from the meat of diseased rabbits. 
