Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN•23fered from a mysterious malady known as the "milk sick." Itwas fatal to cattle, sheep, and horses, and sometimes carried offentire communities of people. No one knew what caused it, andfor a hundred years it baffled the medical profession. It was notuntil the beginning of the present century that science showedthat the poisoning was due to animals eating a plant known aswhite snakeroot. The poison was transmitted to humans throughthe milk of cows. White snakeroot thrives in wooded pasturesand deeply shaded ravines, and to this day it continues to takeits toll of human life. Every year the Department of Agricultureof the State of Illinois posts placards in the county court-houses,warning farmers that if they do not eradicate this plant, theymay die.In the autumn of 1818 this dreadful scourge came to theBuckhorn Valley of Indiana, wiping out many families. NancyLincoln helped nurse the wife of Peter Brooner, the bearhunter,whose cabin was only half a mile away. Mrs. Broonerdied, and Nancy herself suddenly felt ill. Her head swam, andsharp pains shot through her abdomen. Vomiting severely, shewas carried home to her wretched pallet of leaves and skins.Her hands and feet were cold, but her vitals seemed to be onfire. She kept calling for water. Water. Water. More water.Tom Lincoln had a profound faith in signs and omens; so,on the second night of her illness, when a dog howled longand piteously outside the cabin, he abandoned all hope and saidshe was going to die.Finally Nancy was unable even to raise her head from thepillow, and she could not talk above a whisper. BeckoningAbraham and his sister to her, she tried to speak. They bentover to catch her words: she pleaded with them to be good toeach other, to live as she had taught them, and to worship God.These were her last words, for her throat and entire intestinaltract were already in the first stages of paralysis. She sank intoa prolonged coma, and finally died on the seventh day of herillness, October 5, 1818.Tom Lincoln put two copper pennies on her eyelids, to holdthem shut; and then went out into the forest and felled a treeand cut it into rough, uneven boards and fastened these togetherwith wooden pegs; and in this crude coffin he placed the tired,worn body of the sad-faced daughter of Lucy Hanks.Two years before, he had brought her into this settlementon a sled; and now, again on a sled, he hauled her body to