MALIGNANT MILK SICKNESS OF THE WESTERN STATES,
OR CONTAGIOUS TYPHUS.
This name applies to a disease said to be very fatal in the Western States, attacking certain kinds of live stock, and also persons who make use of the meat and dairy products of such cattle.
The cause, nature, and treatment of this disease is so little understood among medical men, and such an alarming mortality attends their practice, that many of the inhabitants of the west and south-west depend entirely on their domestic remedies. "It is in that country emphatically one of the opprobria medicorum." Nor are the mineralites any more successful in the treatment of other diseases incidental to the Great West. Their Peruvian bark, quinine, and calomel, immense quantities of which are used without any definite knowledge of their modus operandi, fail in a great majority of cases. If they were only to substitute powdered charcoal and sulphur for calomel, both in view of prevention and cure, aided by good nursing, then the mortality would be materially diminished. The success attending the treatment of upwards of sixty cases of yellow fever, by Mrs. Shall, the proprietress of the City Hotel, New Orleans, only one of which proved fatal, is attributed to good nursing. She knew nothing of blood-letting, calomelizing, narcotizing. The same success attended the practice of Dr. A. Hunn, of Kentucky, in the treatment of typhus fever, (which resembles milk sickness,) who cured every case by plunging his patients immediately into a hot bath.
"The whole indication of cure in this disease is to bring on reaction, to recall the poison which is mixed with the blood and thrown to the centre, which can only be done by inducing a copious perspiration in the most prompt and energetic manner. If I mistake not, where sweating was produced in this complaint, recovery invariably followed, while bleeding, mercury, &c., only aggravated it."
From such facts as these, as well as from numerous others, we may learn, that disease is not under the control of the boasted science of medicine, as practised by our allopathic brethren. Many millions of animals, as well as members of the human family, have died from a misapplication of medicine, and officious meddling.
The destruction that in former years attended milk sickness may be learned from the fact, that in the western settlements, its prevalence often served as a cause to disband a community, and compel the inhabitants to seek a location which enjoyed immunity from its occurrence. The legislatures of several of the Western States have offered rewards for the discovery of the origin of the milk sickness. No one that we know of has ever yet claimed the reward. In view of the great lack of information on this subject, we freely contribute our mite, which may serve, in some degree, to dispel the impenetrable mystery by which it is surrounded.
We shall first show that it is not produced by the atmosphere alone, which by some is supposed to be the cause.
"It is often found to occupy an isolated spot, comprehending an area of one hundred acres, whilst for a considerable distance around it is not produced."
If the disease had its sole origin in the atmosphere, it would not be thus confirmed to a certain location; for every one knows, that the gentlest zephyr would waft the enemy into the surrounding localities, and there the work of destruction would commence. The reader is probably aware that bodies whose specific gravity exceeds that of air, such as grass, seeds, &c., are conveyed through that medium from one field to another. The miasma of epidemics is said to be conveyed from one district to another "on the wings of the wind." Hence, if milk sickness was of atmospheric or even epidemic origin, it would prevail in adjoining states. This is not the case; for we are told that "this fatal disease seldom, if ever, prevails westward of the Alleghany Mountains or in the bordering states."