milk-sickness

Dictionary of American Words And Phrases by John Russell Bartlett.

A fatal spasmodic disease, peculiar to the Western States. It first attacks the cattle, and then those who eat beef or drink milk.


A few miles below Alton, on the Mississippi, I passed a deserted village, the whole population of which had been destroyed by the milk-sickness.--Hoffman, Winter in ihe West, Let. 2.

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