110 



There are many fishes which have spinous projections or 

 asperities of different kinds upon their tegumentary surfaces, 

 and they sometimes will inflict wounds which are attended by 

 severe inflammation, or it may be even gangrene and death, but 

 in such cases the effect is similar to that produced by a rusty 

 piece of iron or a splinter of wood, and the injurious conse- 

 cpiences follow as the result of constitutional peculiarity, and 

 not, as with the Trachinus, invariably; in fact such cases are 

 extremely rare. When, however, a puncture is made by the 

 spines of this fish a very acute pain is immediately experienced 

 in the part injured, which is generally the finger. Sometimes 

 this acute kind of pain continues only for an hour and a half 

 or two hours, but generally for four or five, gradually subsi- 

 ding and leaving the part in a numb and tender state for 

 some time afterwards. In the majority of cases, these symp- 

 toms having passed off, the evil is over; but in other numerous 

 instances, they will be followed by acute inflammation, which 

 attains to different degrees of intensity in different cases, pro- 

 portioned, as some say, to the size of the fish which inflicts the 

 wound, or, more probably, to the force with which the spine 

 has been driven through the flesh. Most likely the reason 

 why the largest fishes have the reputation of being more dan- 

 gerous than the small ones is, that they have more power, and 

 are, therefore, likely to make a deeper wound. When inflam- 

 mation follows, different symptoms manifest themselves in 

 different instances. I have seen the parts immediately round 

 the puncture surrounded by a small patch of sloughed or mor- 

 tified tissue, about the size of a fourpenny piece, as though a 

 poisonous fluid had been infiltrated into the parts, and had 

 caused their almost immediate death. In one case the punc- 

 ture had been made on one of the knuckles, and after the 

 sloughed portion had separated from the living, the cavity of 

 the joint and the ends of the bones composing it were exposed. 

 In cases of this kind, it now and then happens that the ends 

 of the bones exfoliate and leave the finger permanently stif- 



