It would appear that under circumstances not hitherto understood, certain parts of animal bodies become poisonous; and the virus would not seem to be connected with any stage of putrefaction, nor with any previous disease in the animal. As far as our limited experience upon this subject will allow us to generalize, the brain and the viscera would appear to be particularly susceptible of such a change. Some curious and highly interesting observations have lately been published by Dr. Kerner, of Wurtemberg, respecting the probable existence of a species of animal poison not hitherto known. He informs us that the smoked sausages, which constitute so favourite a repast to the inhabitants of Wurtemberg, often cause fatal poisoning. The effects of the poison occasionally manifest themselves in the spring, generally in the month of April, in a degree more or less alarming. He states that out of seventy-six persons, who became sick from having eaten such sausages, thirty-seven died in a short time, and that several others remained ill for years. Upon these occasions it has been observed, that the most virulent sausages were made of liver. M. Cadet, of Paris, analysed all the meats, examined all the vessels in which they had been prepared; and inspected the matters vomited, or found in the stomach after death, without being able to trace the vestige of any known poison; nor was there the slightest evidence in these cases of malevolence or negligence. Similar accidents have occurred at different periods in Paris; upon which occasions, the police officers visited the pig dealers, and were perfectly assured that the animals had never been fed with unwholesome food; the use of poison for rats, with which these places abound, was interdicted, and every precaution taken. What then, asks M. Cadet, is this poison found in sausage meats—is it Prussic acid—is it a new matter? It is evidently not the effect of putrefaction, since it exists in meats perfectly well preserved. To the above queries of M. Cadet, the author of the present work begs to add one more—may not the skin enclosing the sausage meat be the part in which the poison resides? It is well known that the bodies of animals who die of various diseases, are capable of communicating fatal diseases to the human species; and experience has shewn that such animal poison is particularly energetic in those parts that are commonly called the offals, in which term are included the intestines; in the history of fish-poison, which will hereafter offer itself to our notice, we shall find numerous instances of dogs, cats, hogs, and birds, dying from eating these parts, while persons, who have partaken of the fish to which these offals belonged, remained uninjured. But to account for the deleterious change of which these parts appear to be occasionally susceptible, it does not appear necessary to suppose that the animal died in a state of disease. Captain Scoresby, in his “Account of the Arctic regions,”[[482]] states that although the flesh of the bear is both agreeable and wholesome, the liver of that animal is poisonous; sailors who had inadvertently eaten it, were almost always sick afterwards, and some actually died; while in others the cuticle has peeled off their bodies. The ancients appear to have entertained a fear with regard to the wholesomeness of the viscera of certain animals, and of the fluids which they secrete. Pliny says that the gall of a horse was accounted poison; and, therefore, at the sacrifices of horses in Rome, it was unlawful for the Flamen (priest) to touch it. Mr. Brodie has lately favoured the author with the communication of a fact, which goes far to support the theory we have offered with respect to the possible source of poison in sausages. He states that he has twice met with evidence of the acrid and poisonous nature of “dog’s meat,” as sold in the streets of London, which manifested itself by producing ulcerations, of a peculiar character, on the hands, and swelling in the axillæ, of the venders! May we venture to ask whether the prosecution of this inquiry might not possibly lead to some new and important conclusions respecting the origin of hydrophobia?
Where animals have died from disease, their flesh has undoubtedly produced affections by external contact, as well as by its ingestion. At the Somerset assizes in 1819, a case was tried, whose merits wholly turned upon the question now under discussion. A cow, having died of some disease, was thrown into the river Yeo, and several cattle that afterwards drank of the water died of a similar complaint. An action was accordingly brought against the owner of the cow for damages. The defendant, however, obtained a verdict, apparently from the evidence of a medical person, who asserted that animal matter in a state of putrefaction will not communicate contagion. But we must here beg to observe that this is quite another and distinct question; the merits of which we have already considered.[[483]] The physiological question involved in the preceding case, is whether the carcase of an animal, whose fluids have been depraved by antecedent disease, is capable, or not, of producing morbid and fatal affections in the living animals with which it may come in contact? The facts collected by MM. Enaux and Chaussier, in their work entitled “Methode de traiter les Morsures des Animaux enragés,” prove in a very satisfactory manner that the Anthrax, or Malignant Pustule, has for its cause a septic virus engendered in diseased animals, and transmitted to man.[[484]] The following are amongst the more striking examples cited from these authors by Orfila. “A shepherd bled one of his sheep, which had just died suddenly; he carried it home on his shoulders; but the blood penetrated his shirt, and was rubbed upon his loins. Two days after, a malignant pustule appeared upon this spot.”
“A boy employed in skinning an ox which had been killed at an inn at Gatinais, because it had been sick, put the knife into his mouth. Shortly after which the tongue swelled; he experienced a tightness of the chest; the whole body was covered with pustules, and he died on the fourth day, in a state of general gangrene. The inn-keeper, who was pricked in the middle of the hand by a bone of the same animal, suffered great pain; gangrene seized the arm, and he expired on the seventh day. The servant girl received on her right cheek a few drops of the blood of the same ox, which produced inflammation, followed by gangrene.”
In this country, a case has occurred highly illustrative of the present subject. A pupil of the veterinary college accidentally inoculated himself, during his dissection, with the matter of a glandered horse; the student soon experienced the usual symptoms of a septic poison; abscesses formed in various parts of his body, and he sank under the disease. Upon inoculating a healthy horse with some of the matter from the abscesses, the animal was attacked with the glanders.
This subject necessarily leads us to the notice of those effects which are frequently produced in the anatomist, by a puncture made during dissection. From the history of those cases which stand recorded, it does not appear that the poisonous effects are either connected with the putrefactive state of the body under dissection, or with the peculiar disease of which it died; but rather with the depraved state of the operator’s health; for it has been repeatedly remarked that those students who enjoy high health universally escape the evil, however repeatedly they may have been exposed to its causes.
Poisonous Fishes.
The number and validity of recorded cases establish the fact, beyond dispute, that certain fish, especially the muscle, (Mytilus Edulis) and others of the shell tribe, have occasionally proved fatal to those who have eaten them; but it has been doubted whether such effects have arisen from a specific poison, or from the peculiar state of the stomach,[[485]] or idiosyncrasy of constitution, in the persons affected. In other words, ought we to consider the fish, so circumstanced, as an absolute or relative poison? Each of these theories has met with its advocates, and many striking facts and illustrations have been adduced in their support. The weight of authority, however, as well as of argument, strongly inclines in favour of the existence of a specific virus, generated under circumstances which we are at present unable to appreciate. At the same time, it would be vain to deny, that certain fishes are more obnoxious to the stomach of one individual than to that of another; there are, for instance, those persons who are disordered whenever they eat a muscle; others who are incapable of taking an oyster without considerable disturbance of the digestive functions. This is obviously Idiosyncrasy, and must not be confounded with those cases where a number of persons have been simultaneously affected from a particular food, which, on all former occasions, had been eaten by the same individuals with perfect security. We must, therefore, at the very outset of our inquiry, admit the occasional action of these articles of diet as relative poisons; although it is evident to demonstration, that an absolute virus is generated in particular fishes, by the operation of causes hitherto unknown.
As a subject, highly important in its relations to maritime œconomy, the history of fish-poison constitutes an interesting branch of naval hygiene; instructions, therefore, for its investigation, ought always to be given to the naturalists and chemists who may be appointed to attend voyages of discovery. The notice of the scientific men who accompanied Peyrouse was officially directed to this important object; but the unhappy fate of that celebrated adventurer rendered the commission fruitless. The obscurity which attends this branch of toxicology has in many cases occasioned a corresponding degree of credulity; and sailors, as well as others, entertain an unfounded prejudice against various fish, that are not only innocuous, but even useful as articles of food. It would, however, appear that those which are harmless in one latitude may prove poisonous in another; it may be stated generally, that fish are more deleterious within the tropics, than in other seas. In torrid regions the softest kinds are the most susceptible of that change which renders them poisonous, and hence the policy of the Hebrew legislator becomes apparent; “whatsoever has no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.” Levit. c. xi, v. 12, and Deut. cxiv, v. 9, 10.
The most complete history of this intricate subject, and of the dissertations to which it has given rise, is to be found in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,[[486]] by Dr. Chisholm, who has brought together, and cited a great number of authorities, biblical and classical, foreign and domestic, for its illustration. An interesting paper is also published on the same subject in the Medical Repository,[[487]] by Dr. Burrows. To the above sources we must beg to refer the reader who is desirous of farther information than can be afforded him by the present work.