Mytilotoxine, C₆H₁₅NO₂.—From poisonous mussels.
The Relation of Leucomaines
to Disease
It will be necessary in considering the relation of leucomaines to disease to give the term a wider significance than that relative to the chemistry of these bodies. Autogenous diseases may be looked upon as having their origin in altered metabolism of the tissue cells, apart from the introduction of foreign cells or poisons. “It is certainly true that if we should drink only chemically pure water, take only that food which is free from all adulteration and infection, and breathe the purest air free from all organic matter living and dead, yet our excretions would contain poisons. It is true that the excretions of all living things, plants, and animals contain substances which are poisonous to the organisms excreting them” (Vaughan). Bouchard estimates that the amount of a certain poison formed in the intestines of a healthy man in twenty-four hours, if absorbed, would prove fatal. Unless free elimination takes place, elevation of temperature may follow.
The products of imperfect digestion, if absorbed, may give rise to serious disturbances. Hildebrandt has shown by his experiments that subcutaneous injection of pepsin into dogs is followed by elevation of body temperature, which he calls “ferment fever.” The fever reaches a maximum within a few hours and may last several days. Rigors are frequent. The animals suffer from trembling in the limbs, uncertainty of gait, vomiting, dyspnœa, and coma followed by death. On post-mortem examination there are found degeneration of the heart, muscles, liver, and kidneys, abundant hæmorrhages into the intestine, Peyer‘s patches, the mesenteric glands, and occasionally into the lungs. The blood is at first lessened in coagulability, afterwards increased, and thrombi formed which have been found in the lungs and kidneys.
Excessive formation of these poisonous substances within the body or insufficient elimination of them produces serious disturbances. Fatigue fever is an example. A considerable rise of temperature may follow excessive and prolonged exercise, the appetite is impaired, and insomnia is present from excitation of the brain and the senses being rendered more acute. There may be rigors simulating malaria. This fatigue fever occurs particularly amongst recruits in armies subjected to prolonged marching. From his observations of this disease in the Italian army, Mosso states that it is due to the absorption of poisonous substances into the blood from the tissues, which, if injected into the circulation of healthy animals, produces symptoms of exhaustion. The fever of prostration or exhaustion is similar but less in degree, it is more likely to be produced by prolonged exertion with insufficient food, it may resemble typhus fever, delirium may be present, and loss of muscular control over the bowels; death may result. In non-fatal cases weeks may elapse before recovery takes place.
Rachford has pointed out that an excess of paraxanthine in the blood is followed by migraine, and it may give rise to epileptic seizures, gastric neurosis, and asthma; and by injecting paraxanthine into the blood of mice and rats he has produced symptoms of certain forms of epilepsy, and others similar to the nervous symptoms of chronic lead poisoning.
CHAPTER VI
FOOD POISONING
(BROMATOTOXISMUS)
Instances have occurred from time to time of serious illness attacking individuals either separately or collectively shortly after the ingestion of food. The food may be rendered poisonous in the following ways:
1. A poisonous substance may have been added to it, intentionally or accidentally.