The Curse of Milk Sickness

[taneq]

Part 2: https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2019/02/the-curse-of-milk...

[alexandercrohde]

Interesting how important an animal's diet can be, something I didn't fully appreciate.

Also it's nice to see accounts of how science semi-functioned historically. I'm fascinated by the role of human-factors in our attempts at objective-science.

[taneq]

You find this out pretty quickly when you have kids. The mother's diet has a huge affect on her milk (and thence, on the infant).

[cainxinth]

You are what you eat eats.

[goda90]

I still distinctly remember milk sickness being used as the "story" behind some experiments they had us do in early science classes in middle or high school. Basically, a teenager was sick/had died and we had to figure out where the milk came from(then the experiment was to study density of different plastics to determine which dairy had bottled it). One thing that stood out to me was that the parents in the story described the victim's breathe as smelling like nail polish. One of the symptoms is the build up of ketone bodies like acetone, which might be noticeable in the breathe.

[mrpoptart]

Friendly correction: you meant "breath" not "breathe."

[loblollyboy]

Pretty interesting story. A little history, a little science. hi-sci?

[kupiv]

I like it, very interesting informaton. Thank you for sharing this:)

[symmitchry]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageratina_altissima

[eps]

... continued tomorrow

Perhaps could use a repost tomorrow then :)

[aaron_oxenrider]

https://www.appalachianhistory.net/2019/02/the-curse-of-milk...

It's already posted.

[mnw21cam]

That "tomorrow" was earlier this year.