The Bulletin 
., 8s \ 
County, Ohio, “presumes nearly one-fourth of the pioneers and early 
settlers died of this disease.” Compton (1881) in discussing conditions 
in Dubois County, Indiana, in 1815, says that “more than half the 
deaths that occurred in that section were from milksickness. It was 
also very fatal among stock.” 
While these opinions represent the belief of a considerable number 
who have known this disease, it is by no means universally shared. 
Among those who have expressed themselves differently may be cited 
Smith (1874) of Kenton, Ohio, who states in a letter to a medical 
journal, “We are having, this fall, a regular epidemic of what is gen¬ 
erally called milksickness or trembles. I have treated upwards of 
thirty cases.” In an article by Gray (1881) twelve cases of so-called 
gastritis developed among the consumers of butter from a certain farm. 
Three of these came under his observation and were apparently gen¬ 
uine cases of milksickness. Shapard (1892), of Winchester, Tenn., 
believed that the disease was as prevalent as at any time within the 
past fifty years. As recently as 1907, McCoy (1907) investigated an 
epidemic which resulted in six deaths in Macon County, Tenn. A 
recent report by Selby (1917) from the Ohio Station records the death 
from trembles of a cow at Sharpsburg, Ohio, in 1912, and of two at 
Johnstown, Ohio, in 1915. A communication was furthermore re¬ 
ceived at the Ohio Station in 1916 concerning the death of a young 
woman near Cygnet, Ohio, from milksickness. 
Examinations of records of this disease in the various medical jour¬ 
nals indicate that milksickness was more prevalent during the first 
half of the nineteenth century than during the latter half. This is to 
be expected since the lands in which white snakeroot (Eupatorium ur- 
ticaefolium) grows have gradually been cleared and brought under 
cultivation. Even those who did not recognize this weed as the etio¬ 
logical factor in the production of this malady unanimously agree in 
the observation that thorough clearing and cultivation of the land will 
transform a dangerous area into a safe one (Drake, 1849; Crook, 
1897; Pickard, 1857; Way, 1893). 
Several reasons may be brought forward to show that the relative 
prevalence of this disease in times past cannot now be determined with 
any degree of exactness. In the first place, the International Classifi¬ 
cation of Diseases and Causes of Death does not recognize the exist¬ 
ence of milksickness. This is not surprising, when attention is directed 
to the fact that at the time when the disease was most prevalent some 
writers, who expressed themselves voluminously on milk sickness, were 
very skeptical as to the existence of any such disease. Among these 
are Yandell (1852), who in criticising the various publications dealing 
