Conceptual Physics, 13th Edition

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 POISONING BY CICUTA MACULATA.
The American water hemlock is an energetic poison acting not
only as a narcotic but as a violent irritant to the gastro-intestinal
mucus membrane.
 POISONING BY COLCHICUM AUTUMNALE.
This agent expends its energy mainly on the digestive and urinary
systems. The symptoms are suppression of appetite and rumination,
thirst, ptyalism, grinding of the teeth, colic, emesis in vomiting
animals, profuse, watery fœtid and often bloody diarrhœa, the
frequent passage of a clear urine, abortion in pregnant females, with
short difficult breathing, weak pulse, pale mucosæ, coldness of the
extremities, trembling, muscular weakness, sunken eyes, dilated
pupils, spasms and death. The activity of the plant is greatest in July
and August. On post mortem examination the gastric and intestinal
mucosa are violently congested and the lumen of the bowel filled
with a thin bloody mucus. Congestion of the kidneys and bladder is
usually present.
Treatment. Evacuation of the stomach, and abundance of
demulcents.
 POISONING BY SAVIN.

The tops of the juniperus sabina when powdered and given to dogs
produce violent colic, vomiting, bloody fæces and urine, spasms,
paralysis, and death, with lesions of gastro-intestinal and uro-genital
inflammation. In cattle and sheep they caused tympany, anorexia,
colic, hyperthermia, and constipation followed by a bloody diarrhœa.
Horses took 4, 8 and even 12 ozs. twice daily for eight days without
any ill effect (Sick).
Treatment. Evacuate the stomach and give demulcents.
 OTHER VEGETABLE IRRITANTS.
List of gastro-intestinal irritants. Common Symptoms. General treatment:
emesis, stomach pump, diluents, demulcents, laxatives, enemata, anodynes,
antiseptics, tannic acid. Prevention.
Among vegetables which produce more or less disturbance of the
digestion, or congestion of the digestive organs Cadeac names the
following: Acorns in horses (Morton); tares; bird’s trefoil (lotus
corniculatus, Colin); vetches at ripening (Gerlach); laburnum
(cytissus) horse and ox (Cornevin); hybrid and sweet trefoil
(Pilz); officinal melilot (Carrey); the field poppy, digitalis and
snapdragon often mixed with wheat and rye (Cornevin); conium
maculatum, cicuta virosa, yew leaves, lolium temulentum,
and other forms of ryegrass when ripening; chickweed
(stellaria) killed 60 horses in 200 (Semmer); clematis, aconite,
tobacco, male fern, aloes, horsetail (equisetum) when full of
silica; mercurialis annua, wild radish, resinous plants,
potato tops, potatoes in excess, or green from exposure to the
sun; Œnanthe Crocata (water dropwort); giant fennel,
anemone, phytolacca (poke root); buckwheat in flower
(Moisant); St. John’s wort, various species of lathyrus,
rhododendron, artichokes in excess, spurry seeds, galega,
bryony, the fruit of melia azedarach (in pigs) (Dreux); nux
vomica, podophyllum.
It may be added that the plants credited with causing the “loco”
disease (Astragalus mollissimus, Hornii, and lentiginosus, the
oxytropis Lambertii, mutifloris and deflexa) cause diarrhœa
and sometimes ulceration of the intestines.
The farina of mustard is sometimes mixed with linseed cake and
(developing the active principles of that agent) produces a severe or
even fatal gastro-enteritis in cattle and sheep. The wild mustard of
the fields, being allowed to grow with the flax, or rape, the seeds
mingle when harvested and thus the cake comes to contain an
injurious quantity of the mustard.
 Symptoms. These will vary much according to the predominating
action of the individual poison on other organs, but when they
irritate the gastro-intestinal mucosa they have this in common, that
they impair appetite and rumination, produce colicy pains (perhaps
salivation and vomiting), and constipation or diarrhœa of varying
intensity.
Treatment. Apart from the individual treatment demanded by the
special symptoms of disorder of other organs, it may follow the same
general line for all: Unload the stomach by tepid water, ipecacuan,
with tickling of the soft palate, or by the stomach pump or tube, and
follow this by abundance of mucilaginous drinks. In cases attended
by constipation a laxative of Glauber salts, or aloes may be
demanded, or assiduous mucilaginous injections. With an excess of
irritation anodynes may be indicated. When there is tympany and
fœtor of the discharges these must be met by non-irritant antiseptics,
such as naphthalin or salol. For many of the vegetable poisons tannic
acid proves advantageous, being at once an antiferment, and fitted to
unite with organic alkaloids, rendering them less soluble and
otherwise often changing their properties.
Prevention should be sought by removing all such poisonous
plants from pastures, or land used for raising fodder crops.
POISONING BY CANTHARIDES AND OTHER
INSECTS.

Action on genito-urinary and alimentary tracts. Dysphagia, congestion, retching,

diarrhœa, with mucus and blood, diuresis, enuresis, albuminuria, retracted
testicles, prostration. Lesions: urinary and gastro-intestinal congestion,
ecchymosis. Treatment: emesis with ipecacuan, demulcents, avoidance of oils,
alcohol and chloroform. Other vesicant beetles and larva.

Spanish flies have a primary physiological action on the genito-

urinary organs, but when introduced by the stomach they prove
direct and violent irritants to the gastro-intestinal mucous
membrane. They cause redness of the buccal mucous membrane,
difficulty of swallowing, retching, emesis in vomiting animals,
diarrhœa with mucus and bloody fæces, diuresis or enuresis with
albuminous urine, retraction of the testicles, prostration,
perspiration, paresis and death.
Lesions. Active gastro-intestinal congestion with ecchymosis,
marked congestion of the genito-urinary mucosa especially that of
the bladder.
Treatment. Emesis with ipecacuan and tepid water, followed by
abundant mucilaginous or albuminous liquids. Flaxseed tea, gum
arabic, and white of eggs are useful. Avoid oils, alcohol and
chloroform which dissolve the cantharides.
Among other insects which act as vesicants may be named the
cockroach (blatta orientalis) and the potato beetle (cantharis
vitatta), also the cantharis cinerea, cantharis marginata, cantharis
atrata, and cantharis nuttalli. The larvæ of various lepidoptera, thus
army worm, Cnethocampa primivora, Cnethocampa
processionea, liparis auriflua, lithosia crinola, and the larvæ
of the artica cassus ligniperda, and pieris brassica are covered
with stinging hairs charged with formic acid and perhaps an enzyme,
which are shed with the skin in passing into the state of chrysalis,
and getting mixed with fodders produce violent stomatitis,
hemorrhagic gastro-enteritis and nephritis.
 POISONING BY FUNGI, BACTERIA AND
THEIR PRODUCTS IN FOOD.

Poisons in spoiled food: Moulds, rust, smut, bacteria, toxins. Action of moulds
on rabbits, on alimentary and nervous systems. Smuts, ergots and their congeners.
Tetanizing and paralyzing products. Duration of symptoms.

Food is usually spoiled by the growth of moulds, rust, smut,

bacteria and the toxins which they produce.
Kaufman has experimented with moulds on rabbits. He found that
aspergillus glaucus (green mould) grown on bread produces a
fatal infection in the rabbit even in very minute doses ( ⅒
milligramme); that it will attain this in a neutral or even slightly acid
medium as well as in an alkaline one; and that the spores retain this
pathogenic activity for six months at ordinary temperatures. The
aspergillus glaucus, penicillium glaucum, and mucor mucedo affect
the intestinal organs only, while ascophora oidium aurantiacum
affect the nervous system as well. The smuts (ustilago) and ergots
(claviceps purpurea) vary considerably in their potency according to
the conditions of their growth and the stage of their development, yet
experiment has shown a special action on the vaso-motor nerves
leading to nervous disorders, circulatory troubles, and trophic
disease. In connection with ustilago maidis (corn smut) there are
usually found bacteria, such as bacillus maidis and bacillus
mesentericus fuscus, and the combined products of these and the
ustilago have been studied by Lombroso, Dupre and Erba. These
observers isolated a red oil with the tetanizing action of strychnia,
and oleo-resinous substances having bases which they named
maïsine and pellagrozeine, and which had a paralytic action on the
nerve centres. Pellizi and Tirelli cultivated the bacteria of damaged
maize and found that the sterilized cultures, introduced into rabbits
hypodermically or intravenously caused muscular jerking,
exaggeration of the reflexes, tetanic spasms and paralysis which
lasted for fifteen days after the injection. This is exactly in line with
the causation of contagious bacteridian diseases in which the
ptomaines and toxins are, as a rule, the immediate pathogenic
factors.
 CRYPTOGAMIC POISONING IN SOLIPEDS.

Prominent symptoms, asthenia and vertigo. Vary with cryptogam, merge into
zymotic diseases. Causes: grain harvested damp and moulded, bluish or greenish,
hay greenish white, brown or black, clover reddish, musty fodder, and diuresis,
indigestion, gastric intestinal and systemic paresis, somnolence, delirium. Rusts,
spring and summer, their evolution. Bunt, smut, produce fever and paralysis,
spasms, abortions and dry gangrene, buccal erosions; evolution of ergot, honey
dew on leguminous plants causing skin disease, bacterial ferments, diplococcus,
streptococcus from foul water, causing enteritis. Symptoms: adynamic, dullness,
blunted sense, pendent head, ears, eyelids, congested, yellow, ecchymosed
conjunctiva, fever, tympany, colic, constipation, dung small, round, coated masses,
vertigo, sometimes fatal diarrhœa, or colliquative diuresis; vertiginous: fever,
anorexia, yellow mucosæ, tardy breathing, costiveness colics, stupor, somnolence,
giddiness, heavy steps, stumbling, delirium, push head against wall, clinch jaws,
grind teeth, make walking or trotting or plunging motions, or pull on halter and
fall, amaurosis, paralysis, coma. Remissions. Death in one day or upward.
Resumption of functions and recovery. Diagnosis: from meningo-encephalitis.
Lesions: gastro-intestinal congestion, infiltration, ecchymosis, fermenting ingesta,
congestion of mesenteric glands, liver, brain and meninges. Leucin and tyrosin in
urine. Treatment: stomach pump, antiferments, potassium iodide, purgatives,
enemata; for brain, bleeding, sedatives, ice, snow, elevation, derivatives, prevent
mechanical injury.

The most prominent features of cryptogamic poisoning in these

animals are asthenia and vertigo. In dealing with such poisoning,
however, we must bear in mind that we have in hand, not one
particular disease but a group, differing among themselves according
to the cryptogam and its products which may be present:—a group
moreover which overlaps more or less the true zymotic diseases.
Causes. Oats, barley and other grain or fodder which has been put
up damp, and especially ground feed, becomes speedily overgrown
and permeated with moulds, especially penicillium glaucus,
aspergillus flavus and glaucus, mucor racemosus, and
ascophora mucedo which give a bluish or greenish color and
heavy odor, rob it of its nutritive constituents and charge it with toxic
products. On mouldy hay it is common to find aspergillus
candidus, botrytis grisea, torula herbariorum, and
eurotium herbarium which form a greenish white or brownish
dust. The spœria herbarium is characterized by small black or
brown spots with yellowish, brown or black spores. The peronspora
trifolium attacks growing clover (clover sickness) and isaria
fuciformis the fescue grasses. The latter has a red color and
mucous consistency and is charged with producing fatal poisoning in
cattle.
Mouldy or musty oats, or other grain or fodder have long been
notorious for producing diuresis in horses with excessive elimination
of phosphates, extreme emaciation, weakness and death. In other
seasons, and probably because of a difference in the fungi or their
products they have caused widespread enzootics of indigestion with
paresis of stomach and bowels, and of the systemic muscles.
Paraplegia is a common manifestation, suggesting lesions of the
spinal cord, and in other cases there are general paresis, somnolence
and delirium suggesting cerebral lesions, (Staggers).
Gillespie records an enzootic of gastro-intestinal indigestion and
tympany among the horses of a battery of artillery in Afghanistan
from eating mouldy grass. Fröhner, Martin and Varnell have seen
cases of poisoning by moulds without digestive, urinary or febrile
troubles.
Of rusts growing on grain crops there are two chief varieties; the
spring rust (uredo rubigo vera) which commences as light yellow
patches on the leaves and stems, which change to black as the fungus
approaches maturity; and the summer rust (uredo linearis) which
grows to a larger size and assumes a browner color. Each of these
passes through an evolutionary cycle, the small preliminary patches
(uredo) passing into the mature fungus (puccinia rubigo vera
and puccinia graminis.) Then it must pass through an alternate
generation on another family of plants before it can again grow on
the gramineæ.
Bunt produced by the tilletia caries attacks the grasses and small
grains. The growing seed (wheat especially) is changed into a black
or olive colored powder, having a fishy odor. If the stems are
attacked the leaves become pale, withered and dry. It can only be
detected by carefully examining the individual seeds.
Other forms of smut are the ustilago carbo and ustilago
maidis the familiar black smuts of small grains and maize. These
develop by preference in the growing seeds, but also in the stem and
leaves. The tilletia caries is as a rule more poisonous than the
ustilago the effects being mainly hyperthermia and paralysis. There
is, however, a tendency to spasmodic contractions, and abortions,
and dry gangrene will occur from smut. The author has seen a large
herd of cattle attacked with gangrenous sores around the coronet,
which were promptly stopped when the light, smutty ears of corn
were no longer given. In other cases the hoof was in part separated
from the quick and creaked when the animal walked.
In connection with the gangrenous ergotism of cattle, the author
has found on the same farms and feed, horses with ulcers on the
buccal mucosa and gastro-intestinal indigestion. Ergot affects the
seeds in nearly all the small graminaeæ and is produced by the
claviceps purpurea which first attacks the ovary of the seed
(sphacelia stage), then it invades the whole seed which grows out
from the glumes as a hard, dark or purple spur-like process (ergot
stage), then falling on the ground it grows up as a minute stalk with
rounded head containing spores.
Honey dew growing on leguminous plants is reputed to cause
skin disease in white horses and on the white spots of dark horses,
from which those not eating the diseased plants escaped.
Bacterial ferments have an equally bad reputation. Bastin records
the poisoning of five foals by fermented rye; Dieckerhoff describes an
acute gastro-enteritis with congestion and swelling of liver, spleen
and kidneys, as the result of microbes and their products in the
fodders. Galtier traced a pneumoenteritis in the horse to two cocci, a
motile diplococcus and non-motile streptococcus. Both stained in
aniline colors, and were bleached by iodine. They grew in ordinary
culture media above 50° F. but most freely at 98° F. The animals
were infected by drinking putrid water or spoiled fodders in which
the microbes were contained. The change to boiled water in the
former case led to their prompt disappearance. Reynal, Cailleux and
Foucher have also adduced instances of severe enteritis in the horse
from drinking putrid water. These animals showed active congestion
of the intestinal mucosa with abundant infiltration of the submucosa.
Bouley found 14 cases in one stable, the owner of which had
marketed the good fodder and kept the spoiled for home use.
Barthelemy, Alasonniere, Lombroso and Hausmann, Clichy, Rey,
Gamgee and others give similar examples.
A large number of observations show the dangerous results on the
horse of mouldy bread, inducing colics, vertigo, profuse sweating.
Symptoms. When Adynamia prevails there is great dullness and
depression, the senses are blunted, the head depressed resting on the
manger, the eyes sunken, weeping and half covered by the drooping
upper lid, the conjunctiva is congested, sometimes yellow or marked
by petechiæ. The mouth is hot, the lower lips pendent, the tongue
furred, the abdomen somewhat tympanitic, with slight colics, but
with little rumbling or indication of peristalsis. There is a primary
constipation, a few small, hard pellets being passed with effort. The
temperature may be 102° to 104°, breathing short, pulse small, weak;
the walk unsteady, the animal preferring to stand, completely
apathetic. In some cases a profuse diarrhœa sets in and may prove
fatal.
In the cases attended by diuresis, the weakness is extreme,
emaciation advancing rapidly, but the other symptoms of nervous
depression are less marked, the poisons being apparently eliminated
by the kidneys (see diuresis).
In the Vertiginous form the disease may set in with more or less
hyperthermia, anorexia, a dislike particularly of the spoiled fodder,
yellowness of the visible mucosæ, slow breathing, small accelerated
pulse, costiveness, tympany, colics more or less intense, tenderness
of the belly, and sooner or later marked nervous disorder. This may
be in the form of stupor, the head resting in the manger, the senses
are manifestly clouded, the animal walks unsteadily, staggers, steps
heavily, striking the feet against obstacles, and stumbling. At the end
of a variable number of hours (2 to 6 or 8 after feeding) nervous
excitability and vertigo may supervene. He may push the head
against the wall, the jaws clenched, grinding the teeth, the eyes fixed,
pupils dilated, facial muscles contracted, respirations hurried, heart
palpitating and the skin perspiring. He may continue in this position,
moving his feet as if walking, or he may rear plunging his feet into
the manger or fall back over, and rising push anew against any object
he may come in contact with. Coulbaux speaks of rabiform
symptoms such as attempts to bite but any such deliberate purpose is
rare.
There may follow complete amaurosis, insensibility to pricking of
the skin, and even paralysis or coma. Hyperæsthesia may also be
temporarily present.
Course. Remissions and exacerbations usually alternate, the
duration of the former furnishing some criterion by which to
establish a favorable prognosis. Death may take place in 24 hours or
it may be delayed for several days. Recovery is usually heralded by
the resumption of defecation and urination, and the return of
appetite. It is liable to be at first only partial, some of the senses
remaining dull, or a general stupor persisting.
Diagnosis. In all such forms of poisoning there is the history of the
ingestion of the toxic matters, and in any suspicious looking cases a
careful examination of the food should be made. From meningo-
encephalitis the presence of the abdominal disorder will serve to
identify and to incriminate the food.
Lesions. These vary much with the poison. There is always,
however, inflammation of the gastro-intestinal mucous membrane,
usually with ecchymosis, and infiltration of the submucosa. The
contents of the bowels are imperfectly digested, the mesenteric
glands congested and enlarged, the liver congested and softened, and
the brain and its meninges hyperæmic or infiltrated. The leucine and
tyrosine present in the urine during the acute attack is said to
disappear when improvement sets in (Pellagi, Azzaroli).
Treatment. The first object must be the removal or neutralizing of
the poison. In some instances the stomach pump or tube might be
tried. Usually one must fall back on antiferments such as naphthol,
naphthalin, salol, salicylic acid, and above all iodide of potassium.
The last checks the growth of the fungi or bacteria and favors
elimination of the toxins. It may be given freely to act on the kidneys.
Creolin, 1¼ drachm, repeated three times a day has been found
effective (Albrecht). In addition the action of the bowels may be
solicited by full doses of sulphate of soda and abundance of water.
 When the brain is implicated Cadeac recommends bleeding as an
eliminating as well as a sedative measure. In any case use cold water,
snow or ice to the head, elevation of the head, and purgatives which
may as a rule be doubled. Potassium iodide or other antiseptics
should be pushed, and diuresis as well as a relaxed condition of the
bowels maintained. Counter-irritants such as mustard may be
applied to the abdomen, and enemata used at frequent intervals. It is
important to fix the patient to a ring in the centre of a box stall or
barn to keep him from injuring himself.
 CRYPTOGAMIC POISONING IN
RUMINANTS.
Moulds and bacteria in brewer’s grains, or the marc of beet sugar or cider
factories derange digestion, or cause abortion. Spoiled potatoes cause enteritis,
vertigo, palsy, in sheep, nephritis and cystitis. Mouldy bread causes indigestion,
urinary and nervous disorder. Mildew. Musty grain and fodder as in the horse.
Ergot causes winter and spring gangrene of skin, feet, limbs, ears or tail, lethargy,
palsy, spasms, delirium, abortion; variation in toxicity with stage and condition of
growth, privation or liberal supply of water, or succulent vegetables. Symptoms:
varying, mouldy bread causes digestive and urinary trouble, with marc or ensilage,
develops slowly, impaired appetite, salivation, tympany, colic, diarrhœa, debility,
paresis, spasms, delirium. Duration, 5 hours to 2 weeks. Gangrenous ergotism,
necrotic sore, slough hard, dry, leathery, black, living parts at demarcation line
pink or purple, puffed up, tender, necrosis involves all soft tissues and bone;
nervous form: abortion form. Lesions: congestion of stomach, bowels, mesenteric
glands, brain and meninges, petechiæ. Diagnosis, from anthrax, from coccidian
hemorrhagic dysentery, from foot and mouth disease, from rinderpest. Prevention,
stop or regulate the injurious fodder, salt and pack the fresh grains or marc.
Treatment: antiferments, potassium iodide, saline purgatives, stimulants, oil of
turpentine, injections, derivatives.
Causes. The growth of moulds on or in brewer’s grains, which
have been preserved without salting and close packing, has at times
rendered them dangerous poisons (Duvieusart, Wehenkel, Schütz).
The refuse or marc of beet sugar factories, or of cider works may act
in a similar manner. These products, at first neutral or only slightly
acid, undergo an acid fermentation, with an abundant production of
acetic, lactic or butyric acid which adds materially to their action in
deranging digestion. These agents usually require a large amount to
prove deleterious, about 150 to 200 lbs. a day. Arloing found three
active microbian ferments in the pulp of the sugar factories, and four
in that of the distilleries. The marc of apples has even caused
abortion (Cornevin).
Spoiled potatoes have caused adynamic enteritis, with vertigo
and paralysis (Zimmermann, Grabin, Holme) and in sheep
symptoms of nephritis and cystitis as well (Kloss).
 Mouldy bread has been found to cause indigestion and cerebral
disturbances in cows (Cagny) or nervous disorders without digestive,
urinary or febrile trouble (Fröhner, Martin and Varnell).
Mildew on the leaves of a grapevine has also poisoned six cows
(Bisseauge).
Musty grain and fodder has the same general action as on the
horse and produces paraplegia and other nervous disorders with or
without digestive troubles.
The isaria fuciformis has caused the death of cattle which ate
the grasses infested by it.
When we come to the ergots and smuts we find even more
evidence of poisoning than in the horse. Toward the end of our long
winters in the Northern States we occasionally find widespread
gangrenous ergotism from eating infested hay, the lesions
varying from simple sores around the top of the hoofs, in the
interdigital spaces or on the teats and mouth, to loosening of part of
the sole or wall, shedding of the entire hoof or sloughing of the entire
limb—just above the hoof, at the fetlock, or in the metatarsal region.
Portions of the tail or ears will similarly slough. This appears to be
mainly due to the lessening of the calibre of the capillaries by
contraction of their walls, under the action of the ergotin and secalin,
seconded by the cold of the season. Cold is, however, by no means
essential to its production. The other most common form of ergotism
is the action on the nervous system. The contraction of the cerebral
capillaries and disturbance of the circulation lead in some cases to a
condition of lethargy and apathy in which the animal fails to eat or
ruminate and gradually falls into marasmus, or paralysis may be
induced, or delirium and spasms. Then finally there is the familiar
form of abortion induced apparently by the contraction of the
involuntary muscles of the womb and of its capillary vessels.
There is, however, a great difference of opinion as to the
deleterious action of ergot. Various experiments with large doses of
ergot on pregnant animals have failed to produce any sign of
abortion. The agent, however, varies in its nature according to the
conditions under which it grew and the stage at which it was
collected, so that the failure to produce the expected result in a given
case can by no means be accepted as disproving its pathogenic
properties under other conditions.
 The same remarks apply largely to the action of the smuts, which
are often eaten in large quantities with impunity, especially if plenty
of water or succulent vegetables are allowed, whereas under other
conditions as in winter, under the action of cold, with the usual water
supply frozen up, and no succulent food, it proves very destructive.
Symptoms. These vary with the particular poison: With mouldy
bread the symptoms may come on promptly with indigestion,
tympany, constipation, marked irritation of the urinary organs, and
it may be nervous disorder. Sometimes, as noted above, the narcotic
action is shown with paresis or paralysis and stupor without any
manifest disorder on the part of the digestive or urinary functions.
Most commonly with mouldy fodders, grains, marc, or ensilage the
results are tardily developed and only after long continued use of the
spoiled food. There is then loss of appetite, and rumination,
drivelling of saliva, some tympany, and abdominal pain shown by
frequent movement of the hind limbs, lying down and rising. The
bowels may be costive at first, but this early gives place to a fœtid
diarrhœa, with weak rapid pulse (100 per minute) palpitations and
hurried breathing. The walk becomes weak, unsteady, staggering or
stumbling, and there may appear marked paresis especially of the
hind parts. When nervous excitement sets in there may be twitching
of the muscles of the neck, shoulders or thigh; the eye rolls or
becomes fixed and the pupils are dilated; the muscles of the face are
contracted and the jaws clinched, with grinding of the teeth.
Bellowing or pushing of the teeth and nose, the forehead or horns
against the wall or other obstacles, or the dashing violently against
obstacles is occasionally observed, and indicates in most cases an
unfavorable termination.
The duration of the malady is uncertain. It may not be over five or
six hours in acute cerebral cases, and especially in sheep, and again it
may be prolonged for one or two weeks. Death often takes place in
convulsions.
In gangrenous ergotism a necrotic sore with more or less
surrounding swelling may be seen, and a line of demarcation forms
of a pink or purplish aspect along which the separation of the dead
tissue takes place. The slough is usually of a dark red or black color,
the red globules having apparently migrated into the tissues and
piled up in the capillaries in the early stages of stagnation. When the
line of separation is higher, the line of demarcation completely
encircles the limb, the inflammation and swelling is very marked just
above this line, the skin and soft tissues beneath drying and
withering up into a dark red leathery mass, and this is gradually
separated by the formation of a granulating surface above. The
process of separation takes place much more slowly through the
bony tissues, and not unfrequently the soft tissues having become
detached, the lower part of the limb is separated at the first joint
below the line of demarcation and the bone from that line down to its
free end remains as a projecting necrosed stump. In the ear or tail
the necrotic portion withers up into a stiff rigid shrunken slough
which becomes detached sooner or later by mechanical violence.
In the nervous ergotism the symptoms are largely those of the
adynamia, paresis and convulsions already described.
In abortion from ergotism there are usually few premonitory
symptoms, and the occurrence is to be explained by the number of
victims in a herd eating ergot or smut.
Lesions. These vary greatly. Usually the congestion and
inflammation are most prominent in the abomasum and small
intestine, complicated by ecchymosis and even extravasation which
may so thicken the mucosa as to block the intestine (Walley). The
mesenteric glands are usually gorged with blood and of a deep red.
The brain may be nearly normal or violently congested and with its
meninges covered with petechiæ.
Diagnosis. From anthrax this affection is distinguished by the
absence of the specific large bacillus in the blood and of the marked
enlargement of the spleen, by the great prominence of the nervous
symptoms in many cases, and by the history of a dietetic cause.
From the coccidian hemorrhagic dysentery it is diagnosed by the
absence of the coccidia in the stools and the predominance of the
nervous systems.
From foot and mouth disease, the gangrenous ergotism is
distinguished by the facts that the sores are in the nature of sloughs,
and not vesicles, and that some members of the herd are almost
certain to show sloughing of the limb at some distance above the
hoof. More important still is the fact that the daintily feeding sheep
and the pig kept in the same yards do not suffer from the ergotism.
 From rinderpest it is differentiated by the fact that the sores on the
mouth (when present) are not of the nature of epithelial concretions,
and they do not appear on the vulva, and more significant still there
is no indication of the introduction of the disease by contagion nor of
its rapid progress from herd to herd. The immunity of sheep from
gangrenous ergotism is another significant feature.
Prevention consists in putting a stop to the supply of the altered
food or, if it must be given, in giving it in small quantities only with
abundance of water or fresh succulent aliment. In the case of grains
or marcs the fermentation may be checked by adding ¼ per cent. of
common salt and packing the material firmly in a close box or silo.
In ergotism, succulent food, water ad libitum, stimulants, poultices,
fomentations or wet bandages, a warm building and pure air are all important.
Usually ergot and smut can be safely fed in relatively large amount with a liberal
ration of potatoes, turnips, beets, green food or ensilage.
Treatment does not differ materially from that advised for the
horse. Antiferments including potassium iodide, and saline
purgatives stand at the head of the list. Stimulants may be demanded
to rouse the torpid bowels and nervous system and unless
contraindicated by gastro-intestinal inflammation oil of turpentine
offers itself as at once stimulant, antiseptic and eliminating.
Injections and counter-irritants are of use. Then cold (ice, snow,
water) to the head, and the confinement of the patient so that he
cannot injure himself or others are not to be neglected.