Tutu Poisoning Query

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 10

Tutu Poisoning Query

“Could someone in the medical or veterinary profession please say whether any official cure is known for tutu poisoning?” inquires a correspondent, writing under the name of “Iristessa.” “Cattle usually recover when bled and given paraffin oil and the head is held up to expel wind, but this last action has to go on for hours."

the livestock superintendent of the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, Mr M. C. Armstrong, said that sheep and cattle could be affected by tutu and both were known to have eaten this plant without ill effects where other fodder was also

eaten with it. Stock most readily poisoned were travelling stock or cattle put on to a new block of hill country with tutu plants in gullies. All parts of the plant were poisonous. There was no reliable cure. The great difficulty was to get a poisoned animal in time. Where animals consumed toxic quantities they died quickly in convulsions and in a state of excitement, which made treatment or bleeding extremely difficult. Mr Armstrong said he had no firsthand experience of anyone bleeding and saving a beast. Perhaps a reader might like to comment on this problem?