A few years ago I purchased a plant that was labeled as "chocolate Joe Pye weed." When I looked up the botanical name of the plant, I was surprised to learn that it is commonly known as white snakeroot--and that this plant played a significant role in America's past. I knew that I had to write about it! Researching the long journey to the eventual consensus on the cause of milk sickness had me deep in the depths of historical texts and medical journals.
This text was written for my Cause and Effect texts packet, and it shows a common pattern of texts written to show the search for a cause. Like many cause and effect texts, it also has a heavy element of chronological order. I also wanted it to clearly communicate the difficulties of medical treatment in pioneer times and the hardships faced by settlers.
To find a formatted and student-friendly version of this text with reading activities, click here.
Reading level: Fifth grade, lexile 810
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Mysterious Milk Sickness
Settlers who traveled to Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky in the early 1800s faced many hardships. They left behind homes and farms to live in the wilderness. They cleared land and planted crops, working long, hard hours. They often lived in tiny settlements far from towns and stores.
One of the most tragic hardships that settlers faced was a mysterious illness called “milk sickness.” This illness killed many people, especially young children. When people became ill, they often trembled, threw up, or had terrible stomach pains. There were no medicines that seemed to help.
Milk Sickness and White Snakeroot
People in the 1800s took their cows with them when they went to settle new areas. After all, they liked milk and butter just as much as we do today. Many people know that cows eat grass. But cows will eat other plants as well. When the weather is dry, and the grass gets brown and withered, the cows will look for other food.
This is what caused the trouble with milk sickness. A tall plant with white flowers grows all through the Appalachian Mountains and the Midwest. This plant is called white snakeroot. Most settlers hardly noticed the plant at all.
But their cows did. In settled areas, where cows were fenced in, milk sickness was not a problem. On the frontier, however, cows were often allowed to wander far and wide. When the weather was dry, cows often ate the white snakeroot that grew in the forests.
White snakeroot contains a toxin, or poisonous substance, called tremetol. This substance was not deadly to the cows. However, the poison got into their milk. When people drank the milk, they became ill. Many died.
The Search for a Solution
Strange as it may seem, people did not connect white snakeroot with the milk sickness for a long time. Most medical research was happening in the East, far from the milk sickness outbreaks. People thought that milk sickness was caused by everything from poison dew to poison ivy to even witches. In some places, people realized that milk sickness was worse in dry summers. Some people even noticed that milk sickness vanished when cows were kept in fenced-in fields.
There are some stories about a woman doctor, Anna Pierce Hobbs, who may have solved the mystery of milk sickness as early as the 1830s. “Dr. Anna,” as she was called in rural Illinois, supposedly learned about white snakeroot from a Shawnee woman. As the story goes, she got rid of white snakeroot in her county and ended outbreaks of milk sickness.
It’s hard to find out if this story is true. It’s possible that white snakeroot was recognized as the cause of milk sickness in some places. But proving that white snakeroot caused milk sickness was difficult. White snakeroot in the eastern part of the United States is less poisonous than white snakeroot in other areas. One doctor ate some white snakeroot to prove that it wasn’t the cause of milk sickness. He was fine—probably because he ate the less toxic form of the plant.
Scientists also worked differently in the past. They sometimes tried to prove that their ideas were correct. For example, one doctor fed white snakeroot to several rabbits. Even though some of the rabbits died, the doctor wrote a paper to say that white snakeroot did not cause milk sickness. Many doctors continued to believe that poison ivy caused milk sickness.
By the early 1900s, many doctors were beginning to suspect white snakeroot as the culprit. In 1928, Dr. James Couch discovered the exact toxin in white snakeroot. This substance, tremetol, reacts in the body to become a poison. The American Medical Association officially announced white snakeroot as the cause of milk sickness. A mystery that had spanned two centuries was finally solved.
Milk Sickness Today
Could someone get milk sickness today? It’s possible, but not very likely. Dairy farms have to follow strict rules. In addition, a glass of milk that you drink today would probably contain milk from several different cows. Even if one cow did eat some white snakeroot, a glass of milk would not contain enough to be toxic.
For towns across the Midwest and Appalachian Mountains, milk sickness had a tragic impact. Many people, including Abraham Lincoln’s mother, died of the disease. In some settlements, half of the settlers were lost. Milk sickness made pioneer life even more sad and difficult.
by Emily Kissner
©2024. Permission granted for single classroom use. This text may not be resold or included in any products offered for sale.
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