It appears probable, that some peculiar circumstances with which we are not yet acquainted must concur with the operation of the poisons now under review, before they can take effect. At least unequivocal facts have been published which show, that the fluids and solids, as well as the emanations of animals infected and even killed by glanders or the pustule maligne, may be often handled and breathed with impunity. Such is the result of a careful inquiry made under the direction of the Parisian Board of Health into the nuisance occasioned by the great Nackery of Montfaucon.[[1556]] Parent-Duchatelet, the author of an elaborate report on the subject, considers it clearly established that neither the workmen nor the horses connected with the establishment, nor the tanners who are supplied with hides from it, have ever presented a single instance of disease referrible to the operation of diseased animal matter. Yet upwards of twelve thousand horses are annually flayed there, and among these it is calculated that at least three thousand six hundred are affected with carbuncle, glanders, or farcy.[[1557]]
Of Animal Matter rendered Poisonous by common Putrefaction.
The second mode in which animal matters, naturally wholesome or harmless, may acquire the properties of irritant poisons, is by their undergoing ordinary putrefaction.
The tendency of putrefaction to impart deleterious qualities to animal matters originally wholesome has been long known, and is quite unequivocal. To those who are not accustomed to the use of tainted meat, the mere commencement of decay is sufficient to render meat insupportable and noxious. Game, only decayed enough to please the palate of the epicure, has caused severe cholera in persons not accustomed to eat it in that state. The power of habit, however, in reconciling the stomach to the digestion of decayed meat is inconceivable. Some epicures in civilized countries prefer a slight taint even in their beef and mutton; and there are tribes of savages still farther advanced in the cultivation of this department of gastronomy, who eat with impunity rancid oil, putrid blubber, and stinking offal. How far putrefaction may be allowed to advance without overpowering the preservative tendency of habit, it is not easy to tell. But with the present habits of this and other civilized nations, the limit appears very confined.
Putrid animal matter when injected into the veins of healthy animals proves quickly fatal; and from the experiments of Gaspard and Magendie,[[1558]] together with the more recent researches of MM. Leuret and Hamont,[[1559]] the disease induced seems to resemble closely the typhoid fever of man.
Similar effects were observed by Magendie, when dogs were confined over vessels in which animal matter was decaying, so that they were obliged always to breathe the exhalations.[[1560]] These discoveries throw some light on the question regarding the tendency of putrid effluvia to engender fever in man; and notwithstanding many well ascertained facts of an opposite import, they show that, probably in peculiar circumstances, decaying animal matter may excite epidemic fevers. A detailed investigation of this important topic would be misplaced here, as it belongs more to medical police than to medical jurisprudence; but the two works quoted below are referred to for examples, in my opinion, of the unequivocal origin of continued fever in the cause now alluded to;[[1561]] and other instances of the like kind will be found in the Report of the Parliamentary Commission on the Health of Towns.
Another affection sometimes brought on by putrid exhalations is violent diarrhœa or dysentery, of which a remarkable instance lately occurred in the person of a well-known French physician, M. Ollivier. While visiting a cellar where old bones were stored, he was seized with giddiness, nausea, tendency to vomit and general uneasiness; and subsequently he suffered from violent colic with profuse diarrhœa, which put on the dysenteric character and lasted for three days.[[1562]] Chevallier, in noticing this accident, mentions his having been affected somewhat in the same way when exposed to the emanations of dead bodies; and it is a familiar fact that medical men, who engage in anatomical researches after long disuse, are apt to suffer at first from smart diarrhœa.
The same remark must be applied here as at the close of the observations in the last section. Without peculiar concurring circumstances no bad effect results. This will follow from many facts illustrative of the innocuous nature of various trades where the workmen are perpetually exposed to the most noisome putrid effluvia. But no facts of the kind are so remarkable as those collected in regard to the establishment at Montfaucon by Parent-Duchatelet, who makes it appear that this most abominable concentration of the worst of all possible nuisances is not merely not injurious to the health of the men and animals employed in and around it, but actually even preserves them from epidemic or epizootic diseases.[[1563]]
The effects of putrid animal matter when applied to wounds have been investigated experimentally by Professor Orfila; who found that putrid blood, bile, or brain, caused death in this way within twenty-four hours,—producing extensive local inflammation of the diffuse kind, and great constitutional fever. In man also several instances of diffuse cellular inflammation have been observed as the consequence of pricks received during the dissection of putrid bodies. The disease, as formerly observed, certainly arises in general from pricks received in dissecting recent bodies. At the same time, a few cases have been traced quite unequivocally to inoculation with putrid matter;[[1564]] and if any doubts existed on this point, the experiments of Orfila would remove them.
M. Lassaigne has examined chemically the putrid matter formed by keeping flesh long in close vessels, and has found it to consist of carbonate of ammonia, much caseate of ammonia, and a stinking volatile oil,—the last of which is probably the poisonous ingredient.