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Milk Sickness and the Mystery of Dr. Anna

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It took a while to figure out the cause of milk sickness. One woman often gets credit for solving the mystery, but does that story hold up?

Research:

  • Allen, John W. “It Happened in Southern Illinois: The Legend of Dr. Anna Bigsby.” The Daily Register. Harrisburg, IL. 1957.
  • Allen, John W. “It Happened in Southern Illinois.” Southern Illinois University. 1968.
  • “Disease in Ohio, Ascribed to Some Deleterious Quality in Milk of Cows.” The Medical Repository May-July 1811: Vol 3. 
  • Daly, Walter J. “’The "Slows’: The Torment of Milk Sickness on the Midwest Frontier. Indiana Magazine of History , MARCH 2006, Vol. 102, No. 1 (MARCH 2006). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27792690
  • Furbee, Louanna and Dr. Wiliam D. Snively Jr. “Milk Sickness, 1811-1966: A Bibliography.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences , July, 1968, Vol. 23, No. 3 (July, 1968). https://www.jstor.org/stable/24621944
  • Hall, Elihu N. “Anna’s War Against the River Pirates and Cave Bandits of John A. Murrell’s Northern Drive.” Special Collections Research Center, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
  • Hardin County (Ill.). Historical Committee for the Centennial. “History of Hardin County, Illinois.” 1939. https://archive.org/details/historyofhardinc00hard
  • Jordan, Philip D. “The Death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln.” Indiana Magazine of History , JUNE, 1944, Vol. 40, No. 2 (JUNE, 1944). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27787425.
  • Letter, W. D. Snively Jr. to Lowell Dearinger, with correspondence by Norman Ferrell, June 12, 1967. John W. Allen Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
  • “Lowell A. Dearinger.” https://www.choisser.org/illinois/lowell.html
  • McCarthy, Will. “How an 1800s Midwife Solved a Poisonous Mystery.” Smithsonian. July/August 2023. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-1800s-midwife-solved-poisionous-mystery-180982343/
  • Rodman, Adam. “Episode 67: Fever on the Frontier.” Bedside Rounds. Podcast. 3/20/2022. http://bedside-rounds.org/episode-67-fever-on-the-frontier/
  • A.W. “Reviewed Work: Ballads from the Bluffs by Elihu Nicholas Hall.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984), Vol. 42, No. 1 (Mar., 1949). https://www.jstor.org/stable/40188361.
  • Scientific American. “Milk Sickness—Its Cause and Cure.” 4/17/1858. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/milk-sicknessits-cause-and-cure/
  • Shawnee Tribe. “History of the People.” https://www.shawnee-nsn.gov/history
  • Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. “Shawnee Nation Case Study.” https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/removal-six-nations/shawnee/treaty.cshtml
  • Snively, William D. Jr. and Louanna Furbee. “Discoverer of the Cause of Milk Sickness.” JAMA. June 20, 1966.
  • Snively, William D. Jr. and Louanna Furbee. “Researching a Historical Book.” JAMA. April 7, 1969.
  • Waggoner, F.R. “Milk Sickness: Its Etiology, Pathology, Diagnosis, and Treatment.” Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal. March 1859.
  • Walker, J.W. “Milk-Sickness.” Science, Vol. 8, No. 199 (Nov. 26, 1886). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1760447
  • William I. Christensen. “Milk Sickness: A Review of the Literature.” Economic Botany, vol. 19, no. 3, 1965, pp. 293–300. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4252612. Accessed 19 July 2023.
  • Wood, Curtis W. “Milk Sickness.” NCPedia. 2006. https://www.ncpedia.org/milk-sickness
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