milk sickness

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milk sickness

A family doctor in the 19th century examines a child showing signs of milk sickness.

Definition
  1. Noun:
    • A human disease: A serious, often fatal illness in humans caused by drinking milk or eating meat from cattle that have ingested certain poisonous plants, specifically white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) or rayless goldenrod (Isocoma pluriflora). The toxic compound tremetol is passed through the milk.
    • A livestock disease: The condition in the cattle themselves, characterized by tremors, weakness, and other neurological signs, resulting from eating those same poisonous plants.
Usage Examples
  • Noun:
    • In the 19th century, milk sickness was a feared and mysterious disease in some rural American communities.
    • The pioneer family was stricken with milk sickness after their cow wandered into a wooded area.
    • Preventing milk sickness in cattle involves managing pastures to exclude white snakeroot.
Advanced Usage
  • The term is primarily historical and regional, associated with frontier settlements in the United States before the cause was identified in the early 20th century.
  • It is sometimes used more broadly to describe any illness transmitted to humans through the milk of diseased animals, though this is a less common application.
Variants and Related Words
  • Trembles (noun): An older or alternative name for the livestock disease that causes milk sickness in humans, referring to the characteristic trembling of the affected animals.
  • Tremetol (noun): The toxic alcohol found in white snakeroot and rayless goldenrod that causes the disease.
Synonyms
  • For the human disease: Tremetol poisoning.
  • For the livestock disease: Trembles, grazing disease (specific to this cause).
Notes on Meaning
  • Milk sickness specifically implies a chain of poisoning: plant → livestock → human. It is not a sickness caused by milk itself (like lactose intolerance) or a generic sickness from spoiled milk.
  • The term is a compound noun where "milk" indicates the primary vector of transmission to humans, and "sickness" indicates the resulting illness.
milk sickness

A family doctor in the 19th century examines a child showing signs of milk sickness.

Noun
  1. caused by consuming milk from cattle suffering from trembles
  2. disease of livestock and especially cattle poisoned by eating certain kinds of snakeroot

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