From The Old Fashion Recipe Book, 1977 Edition, Carla Emery writes about Hardware Sickness:
"That's what the old timers call it. One vet tells me that he gets around 200 cows a year with this. It means that your cow has eaten a piece of metal. Cows munch mechanically along and if there is a nail in the food, or close by, it goes down too. Nails, bolts, even timers came up with the remedy and it is still used today. I had a neighbor whose cow ate baling wire. That's a bad one, and she eventually had to be operated on by the vet."
Treatment: "The old timers went to town, bought a magnet and forced the animal to swallow it. If the metal has not progressed beyond the big stomach, this will save your cow. The magnet grabs the metal and pulls it to the bottom of the cow's stomach. It doesn't ever pass out. She has magnet and metal for the rest of her life. But she won't die. There are now small, very heavy smooth oval shaped magnets sold for this very purpose through veterinary suppliers."
Hardware sickness in humans: Heading in to the hardware store to pick something up and getting caught up with stuff they didn't go in for and probably don't need, and coming out with a cart full of stuff that does not include the thing they went in there to buy.
Treatment: No known cure.
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