CHAPTER XXIV.

OF POISONING BY DISEASED AND DECAYED ANIMAL MATTER. Another and much more important group of poisons, that may be arranged in the present order, comprehends animal matter usually harmless or even wholesome, but rendered deleterious by disease or decay. These poisons are formed in three ways, by morbid action local or constitutional, by ordinary putrefaction, and by modified putrefaction. _Of Animal Matter rendered Poisonous by Diseased Action._ Under the first variety might be included the latent poisons by means of which natural diseases are communicated by infection, contact, and inoculation. Such poisons, however, being usually excluded from a strict toxicological system, the only varieties requiring notice are the animal poisons engendered by disease, and which do not produce peculiar diseases, but merely inflammation. Several species of this kind may be mentioned, comprehending the solids and fluids in various unhealthy states of the body. One of these poisons, contained in the blood and perhaps in some of the secretions of overdriven cattle, arises under circumstances in which the body seems to deviate little from its natural condition. A good account of the effects thus induced has been given in an essay on the subject by Morand.[1545] From the cases he describes it follows, that the flesh of such animals is wholesome enough when cooked and eaten; but that if the blood or raw flesh be applied to a wound or scratch, nay even sometimes to the unbroken skin, a dangerous and often fatal inflammation is excited, which at times differs little from diffuse cellular inflammation, and at other times consists of a general eruption of gangrenous boils, the _pustules malignes_ of the French. The deleterious effects occasionally observed to arise from offal are probably analogous in their nature and their cause. On this subject Sir B. Brodie has made some remarks which tend to show that the application of various kinds of offal to wounds, and especially pricks of the fingers with spiculæ of bone from the hare, may cause an obstinate chronic erysipelas of the hand.[1546] I have met with a case of this nature, where the affection was erratic erythema of the hand. Another species of poison, allied to the preceding in its effects and equally obscure in its nature, includes certain fluids of the human body after natural death, which are probably modified, if not even formed altogether, by morbid processes during life. Such poisons are the most frequent source of the dreadful cellular inflammation, often witnessed as the consequence of pricks received during dissection by the anatomist. On this interesting but obscure subject, much minute information will be found in the works quoted below.[1547] It is still a matter of question among pathologists what these poisons are, and in what circumstances they spring up. By some their baneful properties have been suspected to arise from the operation of particular diseases on natural or morbid secretions;[1548] and although the precise diseases inducing these properties, and the precise fluids which acquire them have by no means been satisfactorily ascertained, it appears well established that no fluid possesses them more frequently or in a higher degree than the serum effused into the cavities of the chest and belly by recent inflammation of the serous membranes of these cavities. By others the origin of the poison is suspected to be wholly independent of diseased action in the living body and to lie merely in certain changes effected in healthy secretions by decay. And as the accidents produced by this poison have occurred chiefly during the dissection of bodies recently dead, it is supposed to exist only for a short time at the commencement of decay, and to disappear in the farther progress of putrefaction. But whatever may be its nature and origin, we are well enough acquainted with its effects; which are diffuse inflammation and violent constitutional excitement, quickly passing to a state resembling typhoid fever. Sometimes the inflammation spreads steadily towards the trunk from the part to which the poison was applied; sometimes the inflammation around the injury is trifling and limited, but a similar inflammation appears in or near the axilla, and subsequently on other parts of the body; and the latter form of disease is always attended with the highest constitutional derangement and with the greatest danger. Another singular poison, unequivocally the product of disease, and which acts as a local irritant, is the flesh or fluids of animals affected at the time of their death with a carbuncular disorder, denominated in Germany _Milzbrand_, and analogous to the _pustule maligne_ of the French. The disease, so far as I know, has not received a vulgar name in the English language, being fortunately rare in Britain. It is a constitutional and epidemic malady, which sometimes prevails among cattle on the continent to an alarming extent, and is characterized by the eruption of large gangrenous carbuncles on various parts of the body. This distemper has the property of rendering the solids and fluids poisonous to so great a degree, that not only persons who handle the skin, entrails, blood, or other parts, but even also those who eat the flesh, are apt to suffer severely. The affection thus produced in man is sometimes ordinary inflammation of the alimentary canal, or cholera;[1549] more commonly a disorder precisely the same as the pustule maligne;[1550] but most frequently of all an eruption of one or more large carbuncles resembling those of the original disease of cattle.[1551] It is often fatal. The carbuncular form has been known to cause death in forty-eight hours.[1552] It is an interesting fact, for the knowledge of which we are indebted to M. Dupuy, that the carbuncle of cattle may be caused by applying to a wound the blood or spleen of an animal killed by gangrene of the lungs.[1553] A poison analogous to the former in its nature, which has sometimes occasioned severe and even fatal effects in man is the matter of _glanders_, a contagious disease to which the horse is peculiarly subject, and which is communicated probably by means of a morbid secretion from the nostrils. This disease has been propagated to man by infection; at least instances have been related where grooms attending glandered horses, although they had no external injury through which inoculation could take place, were attacked with profuse fetid discharge from the nostrils, a pustular eruption on the face, and colliquative diarrhœa, which has sometimes ended fatally in a few days.[1554] In other instances inoculation of the hand with the blood of the glandered horse has produced alarming diffuse inflammation, and a carbuncular eruption.[1555] 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. _Of Animal Matter rendered Poisonous by Modified Putrefaction._ The third way in which animal matters naturally wholesome may become irritant poisons, is by their undergoing a modified putrefaction. It is probable that many common articles of food occasionally become poisonous in this way; but none are so liable to acquire injurious properties as certain articles much used in Germany, namely, a particular kind of sausage, a particular kind of cheese, and bacon. The last two species of poison have been occasionally observed in France, and probably occur in Britain also. But the first has been hitherto met with only in some districts of Germany. The best account yet given of the _sausage-poison_ is contained in two essays published by Dr. Kerner,[1565] in a Thesis by Dr. Dann,[1566] and in a prize-essay by Dr. W. Horn.[1567] It has at various times committed great ravages in Germany, especially in the Würtemberg territories, where 234 cases of poisoning with it occurred between the years 1793 and 1827; and of that number no less than 110 proved fatal.[1568] The symptoms of poisoning seldom begin till twenty-four, or even forty-eight hours, after the noxious meal, and rather later than earlier. The tardiness of their approach seems owing to the great indigestibility of the fatty matter with which the active principle is mixed. The first symptoms are pain in the stomach, vomiting, purging, and dryness of the mouth and nose. The eyes, eyelids, and pupils then become fixed and motionless; the voice is rendered hoarse, or is lost altogether; the power of swallowing is much impaired; the pulse gradually fails, frequent swoonings ensue, and the skin becomes cold and insensible. The secretions and excretions, with the exception of the urine, are then commonly suspended; but sometimes profuse diarrhœa continues throughout. The appetite is not impaired; fever is rarely present; and the mind continues to the last unclouded. Fatal cases end with convulsions and oppressed breathing between the third and eighth day. In cases of recovery the period of convalescence may be protracted to several years. The chief appearances in the dead body are signs of inflammation in the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal,—such as whiteness and dryness of the throat, thickening of the gullet, redness of the stomach and intestines; also croupy deposition in the windpipe; great flaccidity of the heart; and a tendency in the whole body to resist putrefaction. In a set of cases which occurred so lately as 1841, there was found after death abscesses in the tonsils, dark bluish redness of the membrane of the pharynx, windpipe and bronchial ramifications, gorging of the pulmonary air-tubes and condensation of the pulmonary tissue itself, dark redness of the fundus of the stomach, with circumscribed softening, a dark gray, red, or black appearance of the mucous coat of the intestines, accumulation of greenish-yellow fæces in the colon, brittleness of the liver, and enlargement of the spleen.[1569] The article which is apt to occasion these baneful effects is of two sorts, the white and the bloody sausage (_leberwürste_, _blut-würste_). Both are of large size, the material being put into swine’s stomachs; and they are cured by drying and smoking them in a chimney with wood-smoke. Those which have been found to act as poisons possess an acid reaction, are soft in consistence, have a nauseous, putrid taste, and an unpleasant sweetish-sour smell, like that of purulent matter. They are met with principally about the beginning of spring, when they are liable to be often alternately frozen and thawed in the curing. Those sausages only become poisonous which have been boiled before being salted and hung up. They are poisonous only at a particular stage of decay, and cease to be so when putrefaction has advanced so far that sulphuretted-hydrogen is evolved. The central part is often poisonous when the surface is wholesome. Various opinions have been entertained of the cause of the deleterious qualities thus contracted. In recent times the principle has been supposed to be pyroligneous acetic acid, hydrocyanic acid, or cocculus indicus. Dr. Kerner, however, has shown that none of these notions will account for the phenomena; and at first conceived he had proved the poisonous principle to be a fatty acid analogous to the sebacic acid of Thenard, and originating in a modified process of putrefaction. From the poisonous sausage he procured by double decomposition an acid similar in chemical properties to that obtained from fat by destructive distillation; and by experiments on animals he thought he observed, that the acid procured in either way produced symptoms analogous to those of poisoning with the deleterious sausage. Subsequently, however, he changed his views in some measure; and he now considers that the poison is a compound one, consisting of a fatty acid analogous to the sebacic, and of a volatile principle.[1570] The results obtained by Dr. Dann coincide with the last opinion. Dann infers from his researches that the poisonous principle does not necessarily reside in an acid, but is an acrid empyreumatic oil, which when pure is not active, but is rendered so by uniting with various fatty acids.[1571] The results lately obtained by Buchner after an elaborate and careful analysis are somewhat different and probably nearer the truth. He first ascertained that the product of the distillation of fat has no analogy with the sausage-poison. He found it to consist of animalized acetic acid, and a fetid empyreumatic oil, the former of which has no injurious effect on animals, while the latter, though an active poison, is purely narcotic in its operation. On next examining a sausage sent to him from Würtemberg, which had violently affected four individuals and killed one of them in six days, he remarked that the poisonous principle is not soluble in water, or capable of being distilled over with it; and that cold alcohol removes a granular fatty matter, which, when purified by distilled water, has a yellowish colour, a peculiar nauseous smell, and a disagreeable oleaginous taste, followed by extraordinary dryness of the throat for several hours. Although it does not possess an acid reaction on litmus, it forms a soap with alkalis, and is separated again by acids unchanged; and consequently it may be considered a fatty acid, to which Buchner proposes to give the name of Botulinic acid [Würst-fett-saüre]. It concentrates in itself the poisonous properties of the crude sausage. Thirty grains of it, which formed three-fourths of the whole product of a single sausage, were given in two doses to a puppy with an interval of a day between them. For some hours after the second dose no apparent effect was produced. But gradually the animal became dull, lay in the same spot, wasted rapidly away notwithstanding a vigorous appetite, and died of exhaustion on the thirteenth day. Half a grain causes insupportable dryness in the throat, which does not go off for several hours.[1572] With these results the contemporaneous and unconnected researches of Dr. Schumann accord very remarkably. Alcohol boiled on the poison-sausage deposited on cooling a fatty matter, which, when washed with distilled water, possessed all the properties specified by Buchner, as characterizing his fatty acid, and acted on animals in the same way as the sausage-poison.[1573] The _poison of cheese_ has been for some time more generally known. Dr. Henneman has published an interesting essay on several cases which happened at Schwerin in 1823.[1574] Another account of a similar accident which happened at Minden in 1825 has been published in Rust’s Magazin.[1575] But by far the best information on the subject is to be obtained from two papers in Horn’s Archiv,—the one by Professor Hünefeld of Greifswald, describing the phenomena as he witnessed them in that city in 1827, and containing an elaborate chemical analysis and physiological experiments, by means of which he conceives he has discovered the deleterious principles contained in the cheese,[1576]—the other by Dr. Westrumb of Hameln, who investigated the particulars of seven cases which came under his notice in 1826, and with the aid of Sertürner, the chemist, traced the properties of the poison to almost the same principles with those indicated by the researches of Hünefeld.[1577] Besides the cases which have given origin to these papers, others have occurred throughout Germany in the same period; and during the third quarter of last century this kind of poisoning was so common, that several of the German states investigated the subject, and legislative enactments were passed in consequence. For a long time the prevalent belief was that the cheese acquired an impregnation from copper vessels used in the dairies; and accordingly the Austrian, Wirtemberg and Ratesberg States prohibited the use of copper for such purposes. This opinion, however, was proved by chemical analysis to be untenable; and the inquiries of Hünefeld and Sertürner, have now rendered it probable that the poisonous property of the cheese resides in two animal acids, analogous, if not identical, with the caseïc and sebacic acids. The mode in which the formation of these acids is accounted for is as follows. According to the researches of Proust the sharp peculiar taste of old cheese is owing to the gradual conversion of the curd or casein into the caseate of ammonia, which in sound cheeses is always united with the excess of alkali. In the cheese in question (_barscher-käse_, _quark-käse_, _hand-käse_) the curd, before being salted, is left for some time in a heap to ferment, in consequence of which it becomes sour and afterwards ripens faster. But if the milk has been curdled with vinegar,—if the acid liquor formed while it ferments is not carefully drained off,—if the fermentation is allowed to go too far,—if too little salt is used in preserving the curd,—or if flour has been mixed with the curd, the subsequent ripening or decaying of the cheese follows a peculiar course, and a considerable excess of caseïc acid is formed, as well as some sebacic acid. The poisonous cheeses, according to Westrumb, present no peculiarity in their appearance, taste or smell. But Hünefeld says that they are yellowish-red, soft, and tough, with harder and darker lumps interspersed, that they have a disagreeable taste, redden litmus, and becomes flesh-red instead of yellow, under the action of nitric acid. The symptoms they cause in man appear to be nearly the same with those produced by the poisonous sausage, and usually commence, according to Hünefeld, in five or six hours, according to Westrumb in half an hour. They constitute various degrees and combinations of gastro-enteric inflammation. In the most severe of Hünefeld’s cases the quantity taken did not exceed four ounces, and was sometimes only an ounce. The same author found that a drachm and a half of the caseïc acid, which he procured from the cheese, killed a cat in eight minutes, and the same quantity of the sebacic acid another in three hours. His experiments, however, are not quite conclusive of the fact that these acids are really the poisonous principles, as he has not extended his experimental researches to the caseïc and sebacic acids prepared in the ordinary way. His views will probably be altered and simplified, if future experiments should confirm the late inquiries of Braconnot, who has stated that Proust’s caseïc acid is a modification of the acetic, combined with an acrid oil.[1578] Westrumb procured analogous results with those of Hünefeld when he gave to animals the acid fat which he separated in the course of his analysis. The poisonous cheese has been hitherto met with chiefly in some parts of Germany. From information communicated to me by Dr. Swanwick of Macclesfield, there is some reason to think that a parallel poison is occasionally met with in Cheshire, among the small hill-farms, where the limited extent of the dairies obliges the farmer to keep the curd for several days before a sufficient quantity is accumulated for the larger cheeses.—I am indebted to Mr. Wilson of Lockerby for the particulars of a set of cases, which seem to have been owing to some obscure poison in cheese. A gentleman, an hour after eating the suspected cheese, was seized with extreme weakness and severe vomiting for four hours, then with general soreness and a mercurial taste in the mouth, and afterwards with tenesmus, bloody stools, soreness of the gums, and cramps in the limbs; from which symptoms he did not recover for four weeks. Five other members of his household suffered similarly, but less severely, and also the shop-boy who ate a little while selling it. None of the ordinary mineral poisons could be detected in it.—It is hardly necessary to add, that analogous properties may be imparted to cheese by the intentional or accidental addition of other poisons of a mineral nature. This subject has been already alluded to in the section upon lead. As connected, though indeed but remotely, with the cheese-poison, some notice may be here taken of a peculiar mode in which it has been supposed that _milk_ may acquire the properties of an acrid poison. It has been several times remarked on the continent, that the milk even of the cow, but more particularly that of the ewe and goat, may act like a violent poison, although no mineral or other deleterious impregnation could be detected in it; and these effects have been variously and vaguely ascribed to the animal having been diseased, or to its having fed on acrid vegetables, which pass into the milk without injury to its health, because though poisonous to most animals, they are not so to the Ruminantia. This singular topic cannot be thoroughly investigated, as precise facts are still wanting. But the two following examples of the accident alluded to may be mentioned. One occurred at Aurillac, a village in France. Fifteen or sixteen customers of a particular dealer in goats’ milk were at one and the same time attacked with all the symptoms of violent cholera; and about twenty-four hours afterwards the goat too was taken ill with the same affection, and died in three days.[1579] The other instance occurred at Hereford in Westphalia. Six people of a family, after partaking of goat’s butter-milk, were simultaneously attacked with violent vomiting, tension of the epigastrium, and retraction of the lower belly; and several of them suffered so severely as even to have been thought by their physician, Dr. Bonorden, to be in danger.[1580] Dr. Westrumb has alluded to similar cases in his memoir on the poison of cheese, and has proved that the ordinary explanations of them are far from satisfactory. Among other judicious observations he remarks, that the poison has been generally believed to arise sometimes from the cattle having fed on the _Euphorbia esula_, a species of spurge; that, according to Viridet in his _Tractatus de Prima Coctione_, l. i. c. 15, certain fields in the neighbourhood of Embrim were of necessity abandoned by the shepherds, because the milk of their cows was rendered useless by the abundance of that plant among the herbage; but that he himself has found cattle will not touch it so long as grass and other wholesome vegetables are to be found in the pasturage.[1581] Professors Orfila and Marc, who were appointed by the Society of Medicine of Paris to report upon the accident at Aurillac, state, that in parallel cases which had been referred to them by the police at Paris they had been unable to detect any mineral poison; that none of the received explanations are in their opinion satisfactory; and that they are disposed to ascribe the poisonous alteration of the milk to new principles formed by a vital process. Another common article of food, which has occasionally produced similar effects with the poisonous sausages and cheese, is bacon. Dr. Geiseler has related an accident which occurred in a family of eight persons, and which he traced to this cause. The symptoms were almost exactly the same with those described by Kerner, with the addition, however, of delirium and loss of recollection; and in two they were so violent as seriously to endanger life. The father of the family alone escaped, having stewed his bacon, while the rest ate it raw.[1582] His escape might have arisen from the fatty acid having been decomposed, or the acrid oil expelled, by the heat. It is not improbable that other varieties of cured meat may also become poisonous. Cadet de Gassicourt mentions, that he had been frequently desired by the police to examine cured meat which had produced symptoms of poisoning at Paris,[1583] and Orfila makes the same remark in his Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence.[1584] As the meat always came from the shops of meat-curers, and did not contain any mineral poison, it probably owed its qualities to the same ingredient as the bacon in Geiseler’s cases. A full and interesting account of an accident of the kind has also been given by M. Ollivier, of which the following is an analysis. Three members of a family at Paris, on the day after eating a ham-pie, were seized with shivering, cold sweats, violent pain in the stomach, frequent vomiting, burning thirst, excessive tenderness of the belly, profuse purging, and colic; but they all recovered under antiphlogistic treatment. On subsequent inquiry it appeared that about the same period other customers of the pastry-cook who supplied the pie had been similarly affected; and consequently an investigation was made into the cause under the authority of the police. After a very careful analysis, however, by MM. Barruel and Ollivier, it was clearly made out, that the pie did not contain a trace of any of the common mineral poisons; and therefore the only conclusion Ollivier conceived it possible to draw was, that the ham had acquired the properties of the poisonous sausage or cheese of Germany.[1585] Two similar reports have been since published, one by MM. Lecanu, Labarraque, and Delamorlière, another by Chevallier; and both agree in ascribing the poisonous effects to the decay of the meat, the ordinary poisons having been sought for in vain. In the cases examined by Chevallier, the article was a sort of sausage, called in Paris “Italian Cheese,” and made of scraps of various kinds of meat, especially pork.[1586] M. Boutigny has published an account of a similar accident which befel a great number of people at a festival in France. He could not find any of the ordinary poisons in the meat, which had been taken chiefly in the form of sausages; and being consequently persuaded that the suspected articles were wholesome, he dined on stuffed turkey, sold by the dealer who had supplied them. But he was seized with chilliness, contracted pulse, cold sweating, lividity of the countenance, great anxiety, and then with vomiting and purging; after which he slowly recovered.[1587] Other articles of food have been occasionally observed to act injuriously on the health. Thus M. Ollivier has given an account of a whole family having been apparently poisoned with mutton under the influence of modified decay. Six individuals were attacked soon after dinner with vomiting, purging, colic, tenderness of the belly, extreme prostration, and a small hurried pulse. Four of them died within eight days. General inflammatory redness, with some extravasation under the mucous coat, was found throughout the whole course of the small intestines. No trace could be detected of any of the ordinary poisons; and Ollivier was therefore led to ascribe the accident to some peculiar change produced in stewed mutton, which all the individuals had partaken of at dinner.[1588] In 1839 a singular accident happened at Zurich, which was ascribed to decayed _veal_ and _ham_. On a fete-day 600 people, who had dined upon cold roast-veal and ham in a wooden erection, were all taken ill with shivering, giddiness, headache, burning fever, diarrhœa and vomiting; some had delirium, others a fœtid salivation and even ill-conditioned ulcers of the mouth; and in the worst cases collapse of the countenance, involuntary stools, and extreme prostration preceded death. On dissection the alimentary mucous membrane was found softened and the intestinal follicles ulcerated. The cause was supposed to have been satisfactorily traced to incipient putrefaction of the veal and ham, which constituted the fundamental part of the repast.[1589] Effects somewhat similar have been observed from spoiled _goose-grease_, used in dressing food. Dr. Siedler has related four cases where violent symptoms were thus induced. Two adults and two children, after eating a dish seasoned with goose-grease, were seized with giddiness, prostration of strength, anxiety, sweating,—burning pain in the lower belly, aggravated by pressure,—violent vomiting, in one case sanguinolent,—involuntary stools, and urine, and dilatation of the pupil. In one of the adults there was also complete insensibility, with imperceptible pulse for six minutes. No metallic poison could be found. The grease was acid, and of a repulsive odour; and three ounces given to a dog acted violently and in the same manner.[1590] Another article of food which has appeared occasionally to produce parallel effects is _smoked sprats_. An instance of their injurious operation is briefly described in the work quoted below;[1591] and Dr. O’Shaughnessey informed me some years ago, that, while in London, he met with the case of a female, advanced in pregnancy, who after eating smoked sprats, in which she remarked a disagreeable sharp taste, was attacked with severe colic, sickness, vomiting of food mixed with streaks and clots of blood, and some diarrhœa. Putrid _pickled salmon_ has occasioned death in this country;[1592] and I may mention that I have known most violent diarrhœa occasioned in two instances by a very small portion of the oily matter about the fins of _kipper_ or smoked salmon, so that I have no doubt a moderate quantity would produce serious effects. Although these illustrations of the effects of modified putrefaction in rendering wholesome meat noxious have been taken in a great measure from continental experience, this has been done rather because the subject has been more fully and accurately investigated there, than because similar poisons are unknown in Britain. The defective system of medical police in this country would allow such accidents as those mentioned above to pass sometimes without notice, and almost always without scientific examination; but it must not therefore be supposed that they are wholly unknown. The following incident, which happened a few years ago on the Galloway coast, is an instance of poisoning not less alarming than any of those which have occurred in Germany. In the autumn of 1826 four adults and ten children ate at dinner a stew made with meat taken from a dead calf, which was found by one of them on the sea shore, and of which no history could be procured. For three hours no ill effect followed. But they were then all seized with pain in the stomach, efforts to vomit, purging, and lividity of the face, succeeded by a soporose state like the stupor caused by opium, except that when roused the patient had a peculiar wild expression. One person died comatose in the course of six hours. The rest, being freely purged and made to vomit, eventually got well; but for some days they required the most powerful stimulants to counteract the exhaustion and collapse which followed the sopor. The meat, they said, looked well enough at the time it was used. Yet the remains of the fish which formed the noxious meal had a black colour and nauseous smell; and the uncooked flesh had a white, glistening appearance, and was so far decayed that its odour excited vomiting and fainting.[1593] It is much to be regretted that this accident was not properly inquired into. The only conjecture which the facts will warrant as to the cause of the poisonous quality of the meat is, that in consequence of having lain long in the water, the flesh had begun to undergo the adipocirous putrefaction; and that in the course of the changes thus induced the meat became impregnated with some poisonous principle, like that of the German sausages, or cheese. An accident of a similar nature, for the particulars of which I am indebted to Dr. Swanwick of Macclesfield, occurred at Stockport in the summer of 1830. A family of five persons took for dinner broth made of beef, which, owing to its black colour, the master of the family had previously said to his wife he thought bad and unfit for use. In the course of some hours two boys were attacked with sickness and vomiting, but appear to have got soon well, probably owing to the early discharge of the poison. Next morning a washerwoman who had dined with the family was seized with violent pain in the bowels, diarrhœa, racking pains and weakness in the limbs; and she did not recover for ten days. On the evening of the second day the master of the house was similarly affected, and was ill for a fortnight. And a day later his wife was also seized with a similar disorder, preceded by soreness of the throat and tongue and difficulty of swallowing, and ending fatally in fourteen days. The last person was previously in delicate health, and subject to disorder in the stomach and bowels. The investigation made by the police authorities into the circumstances of this accident was extremely imperfect: but there seems little reason to doubt that unsound meat was the cause. I am not sure under what head to arrange the following observations, communicated to me by Dr. M’Divitt of Canterbury, and of which he has since published a detailed account.[1594] But they may be mentioned, perhaps not inappropriately, in the present place; and at all events they deserve careful attention, as referring to a description of cases which may be mistaken for other kinds of poisoning. It is well known that pork in all forms, but especially when fresh, is apt to cause indigestion in many persons who are not accustomed to it. But Dr. M’Divitt has shown by a number of interesting cases, that even in those habituated to its use, it may, from unascertained causes, excite symptoms closely allied to those of irritant poisoning. The effects sometimes begin within three hours, the symptoms being those of an affection of the stomach, such as sudden violent pain in the epigastrium, difficult breathing, irregularity of the pulse, great prostration and alarm, coldness of the extremities and vomiting. If a longer period elapses,—and sometimes no injury accrues for many hours, or even a whole day,—the symptoms indicate an affection of the abdomen, namely, pain in the region of the duodenum, or of the sigmoid flexure of the colon, with the other symptoms just enumerated, but which ere long become attended with more pungent pain, tension and tenderness of the belly, frequency of the pulse, and ineffectual straining to evacuate the bowels. In the less urgent and slower cases of this nature there is little or no vomiting. Sometimes nettle-rash appears. Stimulants, opiates, and blood-letting are of no avail; and the only useful remedies are emetics and cathartics, which speedily put an end to the symptoms by removing their cause. In all the cases related by the author the pork was either fresh or recently salted, fatter than usual, but not ill preserved or otherwise faulty in any appreciable respect. In every instance the individuals had eaten pork often before without injury; and on several occasions others ate without harm the same pork which seemed deleterious.