STINGING-POWERS 323 



of the genus Chiropsalmus, to which some Queensland people have applied the same name. There is 

 very good evidence that Chiropsalmus has caused the death of a healthy man aged 21 years within 

 3 min. of stinging, as well as a boy of 1 1 years in the Cairns swimming-bath. The toxin concerned 

 must be far more deadly than the fastest-acting snake-venom. Very recently, Southcott (1958) has 

 reviewed the subject of lethal stingings by cubomedusan jelly-fish and has pointed out that it is still 

 uncertain whether the cubomedusan responsibile for deaths in northern Australian waters belongs to 

 the genus Chiropsalmus Haeckel or Chironex Southcott. But Halstead (1958), who a month or two 

 earlier discussed the subject of jelly-fish stings and their medical management, suggested that the 

 species Chironex fleckeri Southcott might be identical with Chiropsalmus quadrigatus. 



I have myself witnessed the effects oi Physalia stings at Las Palmas, Canary Islands, where hundreds 

 of bathers are treated at the Victoria Hospital. In one particular case I saw a girl being helped out of 

 the water and up the beach with extensive urticarial weals all over her legs. She seemed in great pain. 

 And yet I was told by a visitor to the Cape Verde Islands, that in one bay, Joao Devora, where he 

 constantly met with Physalia, though it was absent in Bahia des Gates at Matiota, everyone was 

 quite used to being stung and made no fuss about it. Again, I was told by an Australian that on the 

 eastern beaches where Physalia is common, boys often pick up a specimen and creeping up behind 

 a victim slap him on the back with the tentacles. 



The obvious treatment for stings is the application of an anti-histamine cream or taking an anti- 

 histamine by the mouth. First-aid treatment commonly given is the application of urine, picric acid 

 or ammonia to the skin, and rubbing the skin with sand, though it is difficult to see how such methods 

 could be effective. 



Lane and Dodge (1958) report that nematocysts on laboratory surfaces or clothing retain their 

 reactivity for at least two weeks, and that surfaces, clothing and skin can be decontaminated by the 

 application of 95 % ethanol. Although this treatment of the skin does not reduce the pain of the stings 

 already received, Lane and Dodge consider that the local application of alcohol to the skin of a stung 

 swimmer is an effective palliative measure, because the toxicity of the capsule contents of Physalia is 

 reduced by such an organic solvent, which also inactivates adherent nematocysts. 



Some of the reactions to the injection of crude tentacle-extracts of Cnidaria in laboratory animals 

 are: somnolence, paralysis, anaesthesia, digestive disturbances, prostration, respiratory interference, 

 anaphylactic shock, and in small animals even death. But a distinction must be made between the 

 injection of the crude extracts and being stung by the contents of the stinging capsules themselves. 

 The effects of the latter are usually burning pain of varying degrees of severity at the site of contact, 

 urticarial weals, pain in the lymphatic glands of groin or armpit, and perhaps shock. 



Lane and Dodge (1958) have made a new and very different approach to the toxin problem, and one 

 which pharmacologists appear to think is very promising, though perhaps it has not gone very far yet. 

 They say that the nematocyst content appears to be a highly labile protein-complex. When tested in 

 fish, frogs or mice it appeared to affect the nervous system, particularly the respiratory centres, before 

 involving the voluntary muscles. The toxin elicited responses in the isolated heart of the clam which 

 were similar to those caused by acetylcholine. 



After intraperitoneal injection of mice with an appropriate toxin sample of pure Physalia capsule- 

 content, Lane and Dodge report the following symptoms: increased activity and tremors probably due 

 to local irritation. After 10 min. there were ataxia, decreased muscle-tone, flaccid paralysis, slowed 

 and laboured breathing, defecation, aphrodisia, marked myosis, cyanosis, anoxic convulsions and 

 death. Survival time was 1-48 hr. depending on the dose administered. 



