[673] Gautier, A., and Morgues, Compt. Rend., 1888.
[674] Gautier et Etard, Bull. Soc. Chim., xxxvii., 1882.
[675] Guareschi et Mosso, Les ptomaines, 1883.
[676] Gautier, A., et Morgues, Compt. Rend., 1888.
[677] Brieger, 1885, Ptomaines, iii.
DIVISION III.—FOOD POISONING.
§ 686. A large number of cases of poisoning by food occur yearly; some are detailed in the daily press; the great majority are neither recorded in any journal, scientific or otherwise; nor, on account of their slight and passing character, is medical aid sought. The greatest portion of these cases are probably due to ptomaines existing in the food before being consumed; others may be due to the action of unhealthy fermentation in the intestinal canal itself; in a third class of cases, it is probable that a true zymotic infection is conveyed and develops in the sufferer; the latter class of cases, as, for instance, the Middlesborough epidemic of pleuro-pneumonia, is outside the scope of this treatise.
Confining the attention to cases of food poisoning in which the symptoms have been closely analysed and described, the reader is referred to thirteen cases of food poisoning, investigated by the medical officers of the Local Government Board between the years 1878 and 1891, as follows:—