What is "milk sickness"

Milk \Milk\ (m[i^]lk), n. [AS. meoluc, meoloc, meolc, milc; akin to OFries. meloc, D. melk, G. milch, OHG. miluh, Icel. mj[=o]lk, Sw. mj["o]lk, Dan. melk, Goth. miluks, G. melken to milk, OHG. melchan, Lith. milszti, L. mulgere, Gr. 'ame`lgein. [root]107. Cf. Milch, Emulsion, Milt soft roe of fishes.]

1. (Physiol.) A white fluid secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals for the nourishment of their young, consisting of minute globules of fat suspended in a solution of casein, albumin, milk sugar, and inorganic salts. ``White as morne milk.''
   --Chaucer.

2. (Bot.) A kind of juice or sap, usually white in color, found in certain plants; latex. See Latex.

3. An emulsion made by bruising seeds; as, the milk of almonds, produced by pounding almonds with sugar and water.

4. (Zo["o]l.) The ripe, undischarged spat of an oyster. Condensed milk. See under Condense, v. t. Milk crust (Med.), vesicular eczema occurring on the face and scalp of nursing infants. See Eczema. Milk fever.

   1. (Med.) A fever which accompanies or precedes the first lactation. It is usually transitory.

   2. (Vet. Surg.) A form puerperal peritonitis in cattle; also, a variety of meningitis occurring in cows after calving.

      Milk glass, glass having a milky appearance.

      Milk knot (Med.), a hard lump forming in the breast of a nursing woman, due to obstruction to the flow of milk and congestion of the mammary glands.

      Milk leg (Med.), a swollen condition of the leg, usually in puerperal women, caused by an inflammation of veins, and characterized by a white appearance occasioned by an accumulation of serum and sometimes of pus in the cellular tissue.

      Milk meats, food made from milk, as butter and cheese. [Obs.]
      --Bailey.

      Milk mirror. Same as Escutcheon, 2.

      Milk molar (Anat.), one of the deciduous molar teeth which are shed and replaced by the premolars.

      Milk of lime (Chem.), a watery emulsion of calcium hydrate, produced by macerating quicklime in water.

      Milk parsley (Bot.), an umbelliferous plant ( Peucedanum palustre) of Europe and Asia, having a milky juice.

      Milk pea (Bot.), a genus ( Galactia) of leguminous and, usually, twining plants.

      Milk sickness (Med.), See milk sickness in the vocabulary.

      Milk snake (Zo["o]l.), a harmless American snake ( Ophibolus triangulus, or Ophibolus eximius). It is variously marked with white, gray, and red. Called also milk adder, chicken snake, house snake, etc.

      Milk sugar. (Physiol. Chem.) See Lactose, and Sugar of milk (below).

      Milk thistle (Bot.), an esculent European thistle ( Silybum marianum), having the veins of its leaves of a milky whiteness.

      Milk thrush. (Med.) See Thrush.

      Milk tooth (Anat.), one of the temporary first set of teeth in young mammals; in man there are twenty.

      Milk tree (Bot.), a tree yielding a milky juice, as the cow tree of South America ( Brosimum Galactodendron), and the Euphorbia balsamifera of the Canaries, the milk of both of which is wholesome food.

      Milk vessel (Bot.), a special cell in the inner bark of a plant, or a series of cells, in which the milky juice is contained. See Latex.

      Rock milk. See Agaric mineral, under Agaric.

      Sugar of milk. The sugar characteristic of milk; a hard white crystalline slightly sweet substance obtained by evaporation of the whey of milk. It is used in pellets and powder as a vehicle for homeopathic medicines, and as an article of diet. See Lactose.

Milk sickness \Milk sickness\ (Veter., Med.) A peculiar malignant disease, occurring in parts of the western United States, and affecting certain kinds of farm stock (esp. cows), and persons using the meat or dairy products of infected cattle. Its chief symptoms in man are uncontrollable vomiting, obstinate constipation, pain, and muscular tremors. Its origin in cattle has been variously ascribed to the presence of certain plants in their food, and to polluted water.

n. A condition, with tremble and vomiting, caused by ingestion of milk, meat, etc. from a cow that has fed on white snakeroot, which contains the poison tremetol.

1. n. disease of livestock and especially cattle poisoned by eating certain kinds of snakeroot [syn: trembles]

2. caused by consuming milk from cattle suffering from trembles

Milk sickness, also known as tremetol vomiting or, in animals, as trembles, is a kind of poisoning, characterized by trembling, vomiting, and severe intestinal pain, that affects individuals who ingest milk, other dairy products, or meat from a cow that has fed on white snakeroot plant, which contains the poison tremetol.

Although very rare today, milk sickness claimed thousands of lives among European-American migrants to the Midwest in the early 19th century in the United States, especially in frontier areas along the Ohio River Valley and its tributaries where white snakeroot was prevalent. New settlers were unfamiliar with the plant and its properties. A notable victim was Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, who died in 1818. Nursing calves and lambs may have died from their mothers' milk contaminated with snakeroot, although the adult cows and sheep showed no signs of poisoning. Cattle, horses, and sheep are the animals most often poisoned.

Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby, called Dr. Anna on the frontier, is credited today by the American medical community with having identified white snakeroot as the cause of the illness. Told about the plant's properties by an elderly Shawnee woman she befriended, Bixby did testing to observe and document evidence. She wrote up her findings to share the discovery in the medical world. The Shawnee woman's name has been lost to history.