Amblyopia: sense of touch greatly weakened.
(From the Kansas City Star.)
The loco weed of the Western plains is to vegetation what the rattlesnake is to animal life. The name comes from the Spanish and signifies insanity. It is a dusky green and grows in small bunches or handfuls and scatters itself in a sparse and meagre way about the country. It is in short a vegetable nomad and travels about not a little. Localities where it this season flourishes in abundance may not see any of it next year, nor indeed for a number of years to come.
The prime property of the loco is to induce insanity in men or animals who partake of it. Animals—mules, horses, sheep and cattle—avoid it naturally, and under ordinary circumstances never touch it. But in the winter, when an inch or two of snow has covered the grass, these green bunches of loco standing clear and above the snow are tempting bits to animals which are going about half starved at the best. Even then it is not common for them to eat it. Still, some do and it at once creates an appetite in the victim similar in its intense force to the alcohol habit in mankind.
Once started on the downward path of loco a mule will abandon all other forms of food and look for it. In a short time its effects become perfectly apparent. You will see a locoed mule standing out on the shadowless plain with not a living, moving thing in his vicinity. His head is drooping and his eyes are half closed. On the instant he will kick and thresh out his heels in the most warlike way. Under the influence of loco he sees himself surrounded by multitudes of threatening ghosts and is repelling them.
The mind of the animal is completely gone. He cannot be driven or worked because of his utter lack of reason. He will go right or left or turn around in the harness in spite of bits or whip, or will fail to start or stop, and all in a vacant, idiotic way devoid of malice. The victim becomes as thin physically as mentally, and after retrograding four or five months at last dies, the most complete wreck on record. Many gruesome tales are furnished of cruel Spanish and Mexican ladies who, in a jealous fit, have locoed their American admirers through the medium of loco tea. Two or three cases in kind are reported in the Texas lunatic asylum.
ŒNANTHE CROCATA.
Preparation.—The fresh root is macerated in two parts by weight of alcohol.
(The following paper on Œnanthe crocata was kindly sent to the editor by Dr. W. A. Dewey, of the Ann Arbor University, Michigan):