REPORTS OF CASES. 
22 9 
MORTALITY AMONG COWS IN PASSAIC, N. J.—LEAD POISONING 
OR PLUMBISM. 
By Wm. Herbert Lowe, D.V.S., State Veterinary Inspector, Paterson, N. J. 
The people of Passaic have recently been aroused to a state 
of considerable anxiety owing to what was considered to be an 
outbreak of some dreadful malady among their cows, which were 
taken sick simultaneously in different parts of the city, thus caus¬ 
ing widespread alarm. Upon inquiry I learned that they had all 
been pastured in one field of a few acres. Many became very 
sick, and generally died within a few days from the date of their 
illness. Dame Humor sent flying reports in all directions, and 
as most of the cows were giving milk, fears were entertained lest 
it should be unfit for use. A physician of Passaic City, who was 
the owner of one of the animals in question, made an analysis of 
the water to which they had access, but without throwing light 
on the cause of the sickness. The Passaic papers published the 
opinions of many persons, medical practitioners and others, yet 
the nature of the disease still remained a mystery. The con¬ 
dition of things were reported to Dr. Newton, City Health 
Inspector of Paterson, who requested me to visit Passaic, in be¬ 
half of the State, and investigate the nature of the disease. It was • 
quite evident that it bore little relation to any of the contagious 
diseases, not even to “pleuro-phenomena” which one cow doctor, 
with great gravity, declared it to bo. But it was certainly phe¬ 
nomenal, and to more than the bovine scientist. The symptoms, 
however, indicated lead-poisoning, which I pronounced to be the 
cause of all the trouble. Then I went to Dundee, a place a few 
miles distant, to which a carcass had been removed, made a 
post mortem, and found pellets of white lead in the stomachs in a 
more or less sub-divided state. Next day another post mortem 
still further verified the correctness of my conclusions. A third 
post mortem left little if any doubt of the accuracy of the 
diagnosis. Dr. Farrington, Veterinary Surgeon of the U. S. 
Quarantine Grounds at Garfield, was present at the last mentioned 
autopsy. His views, in every particular, I am at liberty to say, I 
think coincided with mine. 
