The eating of the roe of this "sprat" caused in Japan, in the year 1884, twenty-three deaths. The victims suffered from severe inflammation of the mouth and throat, strong abdominal pain, formication in the arms and legs, disorders of vision, paralysis, convulsions, and loss of consciousness. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhœa often occurred. Death followed in some cases in a quarter of an hour, but mostly in from two to three hours.
Lacroix describes a case of poisoning through eating the "sprat" which occurred on board a French man-of-war. Out of a crew of fifty men, thirty were dangerously ill and five died. The men experienced strong muscular cramps in the arms and legs, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhœa. Afterward congestion of the brain, delirium, and coma supervened.
Most of the cases of fish poisoning which I have met with in the West Indies have been due to eating various kinds of "snappers," especially the "gray snapper." The tropical species are very numerous and difficult to differentiate, owing to their frequent change of color according to age and surroundings. In 1897, at St. Georges, Grenada, twelve persons who partook of a large gray snapper were attacked with severe symptoms of fish poisoning. A few hours after the meal all these were suffering from pain and fullness in the stomach, followed by persistent vomiting, severe cramps, watery evacuations, weak, thready pulse, and labored respirations. One of the victims was examined by me four months afterward, and he stated that, owing to intense weakness, he had been forced to keep his bed for several months, during which period he suffered from various nervous disorders. He had shooting pains and tingling of the limbs, dimness of vision, and quick, thready pulse.
In 1893 seventeen persons living in Bridgetown, Barbados, were attacked by similar symptoms to those mentioned above. All these had eaten of a fish which had been hawked about by a fisherman, and which was subsequently identified as a "gray snapper," though sold under a more innocent name.
A Spanish naval surgeon, Don Anton Jurado, while serving on board the gunboat Magallanes had an opportunity of proving Poey's statement that the fishes caught on the coast of Cuba are often very poisonous. No less than twenty-seven of the officers and men were taken ill, most of them with gastro-intestinal disturbance of a more or less severe nature; the others suffered from nervous symptoms.
The horse mackerel, green cavalla, and the jack are often found most unwholesome when caught in West Indian waters.
In Barbados a whole family were seized with symptoms simulating cholera from eating "green cavalla."
The editor of The Barbadian writes: "We think it right to caution people against the fish called 'green cavalla' from being purchased by their cooks. Some years ago we know that several individuals were extremely ill from eating this fish, which is frequently very poisonous. The night before last a whole family in Bridgetown, except the master, who fortunately had dined out, were seized with violent cholera after having partaken of cavalla."
The "jack" (Caran plumieri) is found to be poisonous in some seasons of the year, and it is said that at such times two small red lumps appear in its gills. When they are suspected of being in a poisonous condition an experiment is tried upon a duck by giving her one of them to swallow, and if at that season it is poisonous the duck dies in about two hours. The "rock hind," or "smoky hind," after attaining a certain size becomes most unwholesome, and often infested with parasites. Numerous instances of severe symptoms attacking persons after eating this fish are recorded.
Toadfish, or Tetrodons, are occasionally met with, and are to be avoided as being extremely poisonous, especially if the roe or liver be eaten. A family of coolies in Trinidad, in spite of being warned, ate one of these fishes, with a fatal result. The symptoms were blunted sensibility, trembling, general muscular weakness, difficulty of breathing, vomiting of blood, convulsions, and death.