Causes. The presence of smut in straw, in millers’ grains, or in damaged kiln-dried grains which have fraudulently been added to grain sold for feeding, represents the principal source of this form of poisoning.
The symptoms are very vague. There is indigestion, with a tendency to nausea, and vomiting. Diarrhœa may be present: At a later stage the heart and nervous system are affected. The gait becomes hesitating, the animals show general dulness and spasm of the pharynx; death, when occurring, is by cardiac or respiratory syncope.
Treatment consists in giving an entire change of food, and administering stimulants and purgatives.
AGARICACEÆ (MUSHROOM FAMILY).
Amanita muscaria.—The well-known fly amanita (fly fungus; deadly amanita) may be found from spring to early winter in pine forests throughout the United States. Cows are supposed to be killed by eating it, and almost every year the daily papers chronicle the death of several human beings who were led to eat the fungus through mistake for some edible species. The fresh cap is frequently rubbed up with milk and used to poison flies.
PHALLACEÆ (STINK-HORN FAMILY).
* Clathrus columnatus.—In an article published in the Botanical Gazette (Vol. XV. p. 45), Dr. Farlow, of Harvard University, gives an account of an investigation of a case of poisoning in hogs which was caused by eating this peculiar fungus. It grows in patches in oak woods and openings, and is quite common throughout the Southern States.
POLYPODIACEÆ (FERN FAMILY).
Pteris aquilina.—In July, 1895, nineteen cattle died in Maryland, which were supposed to have been poisoned by eating the common bracken fern. Very few similar cases are on record, but one European authority cites one in which five horses were killed by eating hay contaminated with this fern, and another states that cases are quite frequent among cattle in England.