14 
The Bulletin 
organism is dependent upon what may be termed a symbiotic life or 
existence on certain plants. . . . On the other band, it is remarkable 
that if B. lactimorbi be the cause of milksickness, it should have so 
wide a distribution in milksick and nonmilksick regions.” 
In a few cases certain molds and mushrooms have been claimed to be 
etiological factors. Among those who suggest that mushrooms are the 
poisonous agent are Winans (1840), Johnson (1866), and Gardner 
(1880). Hessler (1905) reports the finding of Sterigmatocystis, one of 
the cosmopolitan molds, in the blood of an affected heifer. Slack (1854) 
compared milksickness to ergot poisoning and believed the cause to be 
a “fungus production” on grass or grass seeds, a view also held by 
INTagle (1859). 
Several other more or less fanciful causes of milksickness which can¬ 
not be classified under either of the three groups of causes have advo¬ 
cates within Horth Carolina and will, therefore, be briefly treated 
before giving consideration to the poisonous plant theory. Walker 
(1886) experimentally exposed corn fodder to the dew in a milksick 
cove and thus communicated trembles to a yearling. Farmers in some 
sections of FTorth Carolina have come to believe that cattle which are 
penned up at night and not permitted to graze before the dew has 
evaporated are not liable to contract the disease. This same opinion 
has been expressed in the writings of Evans (1860), Reagan (1884), 
and Walker (1886). The influence of dew is only an apparent one as 
explained, in part at least, by Woodfin (1878), who says that cattle 
which are confined at night cannot range sufficiently far to reach the 
affected and usually remote tracts of land. The influence of dew is 
explained by Davis (1881) on the ground that animals eat more greedily 
of plants wet with dew than when they are dry. 
A number of writers have adhered to the idea that the disease is pro¬ 
duced by a gas or miasm rising from the earth. Lea (1821), Horne 
(1846), Jones (1862), and Wozencraft (1873) employ such terms as 
“an exhalation from the soil” and “peculiar miasma” in accounting for 
the disorder. 
The claim has furthermore been made by Lescher (1850), Thompson 
(1853), Rawlings (1874), Dorsey (1876), and Sale (1871) that the 
disease resembles, in some respects, malaria. 
Two accounts, Kennedy (1878) and Achelor (1884), which have 
come to hand, attribute the disease to the bites of a certain fly, an idea 
which would liken milksickness to the tsetse-fly disease or sleeping 
sickness in Africa. This idea is vigorously opposed, however, by the 
writings of Carpender (1884) and Murfin (1884). 
