The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-18

aBination than Is contained in the bu-
 reau bulletin prepared by Professos Crittenden.
 The bulletin contains these import ant facts:
 Not since the kissing-bug' craze which originated In Washington. D. C., in June, 1899, and, spread generally throughout the country. has there besa anything like such furor as was cre- ated by the discovery of the so-called cabbage snake species of hair worm, in the heads of cabbage in Ton
 nessee, South Carolina and Louisiana, in the fall of 1903. That year the cab bage snake scare was practically con fined to Tennessee and neighboring States southward. The first specimen
 of Mermis albicans Diesing, which IS
 the cause of the trouble, was identified from McCays (Polk County, Tennes- see. This creature and its still some- what mysterious occurrence in cab bage. has become a matter of much perplexity and annoyance to many of our correspondents, to economic ehIo- mologists and to chemists and physi- clans of the States where Mermis most abounds. Many reports have been re- ceived from reliable correspondents of rumors of persons being poisoned by eating cabbage affected by the hair worm. Some of these gleaned from the daily press, and many clippings Of the yellow journalism order were re- ceived. Among them were alleged re-
 ports from physician who stated that when cabbage affected by the hair
 worm was eaten it produced instant
 death, and from State chemist who
 made an examination of the worm and reported that 1t contained enough
 poison to kill eight persons
 In Raleigh County. W. Va, the cab
 bage crop was reported to be a com
 plete failure. and there was enough poison contained in one worm to poison
 twenty-five men, It should be unnec- essary to add that none of these reports
 had any foundation in fact Neverthe-
 less the known presence of the hair
 worm in an affected district seriously
 injured the demand for cabbage there
 causing very considerable loss to truckers and grocers. The exaggerated
 reports of 1903 were not seriously con-
 Sidered; and 1t was a matter of surprise
 when they were reiterated the follow
 ing year, and what was in reality A
 hoax assumed most serious proportions
 not alone because of widespread alarm
 caused by erroneous reports of loss of
 life. but also because of the very ma
 teriaI loss to cabbage growers and
 others who handled this commodity
 and the decided extension of the area
 in which the hairworm was detected
 Encouraged by erroneous reports evil
 dently melted in many cases by un
 scrupulous persons, the scare soon be-
 came widespread. causing general fear
 of poisoning from Virginia and West Virginia southward through the same States as were affected in 1903, and into Florida, and in addition westward to Kentucky, Illinois. Iowa, Missouri Ok l lahoma and Colorado.
 | The cabbage haiIworm Is aptly de-
 scribed as resembling a piece of bast-
 ing thread, of the thickness of a strand | or corn SILK, of a alarming needle of a
 No. 36 or No. 40 thread, or like A horse | hair; white in color; found coiled or cotling and uncoiling; stretched at length or crawling in cabbage heads. | Its length varies from to inches but reports have been received of a | creature found in the heads of cab-
 pages mee suring feet. The imagina- | tton of the newspaper writers as to color runs riot through green, white | light red, olive green and yellow As matter of fact this hairworrn | Is hliform or tnread-like, and when if attracts attention on cabbage measures generally from f to inches. One specI- 1 men, doubttully of the same species
 measured when uncoiled 22 inches or
 nearly feet. The color is whitish, al- though it sometimes has pale brown ,, ish or greenish tinge.
 Many popular names have been be- slowed upon tFis worm. including cab
 bage snake. snake snake worm,' ser
 pent,' 'reTtile cabbage rattlesnake,'
 occasionally cabbage worm. and sell
 dom If ever hair-wcrm- Most speci-
 mems submitted for Identification have
 proved to be what si known as Mermis
 albicans Diesing. This creature is
 neither an insect nor a snake, but one of the hair worms of the crder Cor diasea. The, principal species of the