5th. There was a good deal of talk here about a cattle disease that causes some deaths during the winter but a great many more in spring – as many as 50 to 100 in most years – as soon as the cattle are let out to graze. I went to the meadow onto which the beasts are first let out and saw that it was a mead or bog-meadow, and I also saw that there was an abundance of ‘Cicuta aquatica’ [Cowbane] that had been grazed off and eaten. So my reasoning runs like this: in spring the cattle eat pretty well all the herbage and thus die quickly, but in summer they take a little here and a little there and therefore do not take so much of the poison. This plant grows in meadows or in damp places and can get into the hay where it may also be a cause of death. How severe its symptoms are may be seen from the work of Wepfer, who gave it to various animals.2 Today, then, nothing could have been more urgent than to investigate this matter, particularly as it could be prevented by employing a farm girl for a month to weed it all out. Even a small town like this would save over 1200 copper daler as a result. I was told that the animals had been so badly poisoned that people’s hands had swollen up when they flayed the beasts – and some people had even died. It is similar in every way to ‘Oenanthe’ [Fineleaved Water Dropwort] with regard to its habitat, its strength and its external appearance – particularly its pinnate leaves.