[ Ctenochaetus s trigosus ] in the following manner. Tl'iey split open the bell-" and 

 reTT^ove the viscera and then soak: the fish overnight in icewater. The next day 

 thev pound the flesh up fine, wash it in water several times, a:5d wheat flour' 

 and make it into fishcake or fish pudding for sale. It is said that tliis metl:od 

 has been employed for ye&rs without any cases of poisoning resulting. It is not 

 knov'n at present whether this is due to the washing away of the blood or whether 

 the poison is extracted from muscle tissues, but it is reported here as a 

 pre sin' ably effective method. 



Furthermore, as stated in Section 2, most reported cases of poisoning have 

 resulted from eating fish soup and in most of these cases persons who only drank 

 the broth without eating the pieces of fish contained in it were poisoned. This 

 is evidence that the poison is dravm out into the broth. 



Such dishes as sliced raw fish and chilled raw fish [arai], especially where 

 the fish has '-^'een washed with water, have caused the fewest cases of poisoning. 



According to i'atsuo the poison is the sarae as that found in tetraodonts, and 

 is in the blood (rot sliown by the results of our experiments), consequently, if 

 in mildly poisonous species the blood in the muscle tissues is squeezed out and 

 the tissues are thoroughly washed with water, the fish can be fed to animals 

 without any poisoning resulting. He also recommends the method of making fish- 

 cake and chilled rav; fish described above. However, it goes without sajdng that 

 in any case the flesh must be thoroughly ground or chopped up and then washed 

 with water. 



For the coniplete elimination of the poison by these methods it is essential 

 that only those species be used which are recorded in Chapter II as being of a 

 mild degree of toxicity. The wisest course is to abstain oonipletely fron eating 

 fish classed as strongly or violently toxic. The popular use of these methods 

 of eliminating the poison is confined to the mildly poisonous species. 



79 



