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.