10 
The Bulletin 
Among the minerals held to be the cause of milksickness are arsenic,, 
copper, mercury, cobalt, lead, and aluminium. Seaton (1842) was a very 
vigorous supporter of the view that arsenic was the cause of the dis¬ 
ease. His arguments were as vigorously opposed by Drake (1842) and 
by Yandell (1852). 
McCoy (1907) failed to produce in guinea pigs any condition remote¬ 
ly resembling trembles in feeding experiments in which cobalt, lead, 
and arsenic were employed. 
Moseley (1909) from feeding experiments with rabbits came to the 
conclusion that trembles was due to aluminium phosphate and that ani¬ 
mals get this substance by eating white snakeroot. Proof of this claim 
consisted in feeding aluminium, which was present in the ash of white 
snakeroot and in the milk and butter of affected cows, and in develop¬ 
ing trembles by the feeding of aluminium phosphate. He found this 
substance also in the ash of Bigelovia (rayless goldenrod) sent from 
Hew Mexico, where ranchmen claimed that it caused trembles among 
their cattle. In his experiments similar effects followed the feeding 
of rayless goldenrod, white snakeroot, and aluminium phosphate. An¬ 
other paper published by Moseley (1910) about a year later affirms that 
soda exerts an antidotal effect upon aluminium phosphate. 
One of the most potent reasons urged that the disease is associated 
with the soil itself, is a fact quite universally agreed upon by all ob¬ 
servers. Cattle pastured upon particular tracts of land acquire milk- 
sickness, whereas others on adjoining pastures never show any sign of 
the disease. These milksick areas are believed to be so sharply delim¬ 
ited that farmers have fenced off areas to prevent the access of stock. 
In some places the changing of the fence so as to include even a few 
yards of uncleared land is held to he responsible for an outbreak of 
trembles. In White County, Tenn., McCoy (1907) states that the dis¬ 
ease has been very rare in the locality of Milksick Mountain since it 
was fenced about sixty years ago. These enclosed areas sometimes oc¬ 
cupy only a few^quare rods. Shelton (1836) records the fact that “in 
Blount County, Tenn., there is a locality embracing not more than ten 
or fifteen acres on which the disease has been known to originate for 
nearly, perhaps quite, forty years.” 
Wooded land has been held by a considerable number of observers to 
be essential for the existence of the disease. Drake (1841) from obser¬ 
vations made in Ohio says “trembles in cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs 
are produced by their frequenting the densely timbered table land which 
from its flatness abounds in wet places and ponds, indicated by the 
presence of lofty white elms, black walnuts, maples, burr oaks, and 
other trees which delight in a rich moist soil.” It is furthermore claimed 
