Barium: A Cause of the Loco-Weed DiseaseCrawford, Albert C. (Albert Cornelius)
Science
Barium: A Cause of the Loco-Weed Disease
Crawford, Albert C. (Albert Cornelius)
Astragalus earlei; Barium
The feeding experiments carried out at Hugo, Colo., in cooperation with
the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station, before the close of the
first season developed evidence that there was in reality such a thing
as a loco disease. The investigator in charge was enabled to describe
the disease in its most important manifestations and made it possible to
sift the facts from the large number of contradictory statements in the
literature.
The laboratory work, undertaken and carried on simultaneously, consisted
of a pharmacological study, under laboratory conditions and with the
usual laboratory subjects, of the action of plant material sent in from
the field. The acute phase of loco-weed poisoning, as well as a more
prolonged type of the disease, was studied. In plants found in this
preliminary feeding to be harmful, the poisonous principle was sought,
with the very striking results fully described in this paper. The
demonstration of the presence of barium in the plants was followed by
barium feeding, with the production of symptoms which agreed with those
produced in the laboratory with loco extracts and in the field
experiments with the loco plants as seen growing on the range. By
comparing these laboratory results with those produced in connection
with the field work, it became possible to sift the wheat from the chaff
in the mass of contradictory evidence detailed in the literature of this
subject.
The practical importance of the discovery of the true nature of the
active poisonous principle of the loco weeds is very great. It not only
sheds light on the loco situation and enables one to explain many
hitherto inexplicable things, but it also adds much to our knowledge of
barium in its medical bearings. It opens up most important problems
concerning the soils and the relation of the flora to them. It should be
borne in mind that although barium is shown to be chiefly responsible
for the poisonous properties of loco weeds in eastern Colorado, it is
entirely possible that in other regions other substances may be equally
or even more significant. This discovery also seems likely to provide a
basis for a rational treatment of locoed stock. Unfortunately, the
discovery of the fact that barium is the poisonous constituent of loco
weeds came too late to aid in the search for remedial measures on the
range during the period covered by this report, but those empirically
arrived at have received additional support from these laboratory
results.
Thus the work in field and laboratory, undertaken after repeated
attempts and discouraging failures by others, has yielded results to
persistent scientific research and promises practical aid to the now
suffering live-stock interests. The results of the laboratory work are
presented in this bulletin.
RODNEY H. TRUE,
_Physiologist in Charge_.
CONTENTS.
Page.
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