1034 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [S] 



Abbes. When the lids were removed from the dishes which contained 

 the codfish an exceedingly strong and disagreeable odor arose at once, 

 in every respect like the odor from putrid animal matter. The codfish 

 taken from the commissary might deceive an unskilled eye ; but when 

 subjected to a careful examination, and broken in two along its entire 

 length, it showed towards the middle a grayish part, measuring hardly 

 (> centimeters in diameter, and completely decayed. This part when 

 broken open exhaled a sickening odor. 



In the first four cases of poisoning, therefore, which are the most im- 

 portant on account of the larger number of individuals attacked (-400), 

 no red codfish was the cause. On the contrary, this red color was 

 noticed only in the three other cases, in which the total number of in- 

 dividuals attacked was only 227 (case of Dr. Bertherand, in Algiers; 

 case of Dr. Heckel, in Marseilles; case on the fleet at Lorient). 



The codfish described by Dr. Bertherand had along the backbone a 

 very pronounced vermilion color; but it had at the same time a faint 

 putrid odor. The codfish which Dr. Heckel examined at Marseilles in 

 1878, and by which fifteen persons were poisoned, had likewise a red 

 color. 



As regards the codfish which caused the more recent cases of poison- 

 ing on board the fleet at L'Orient, they showed an abnormal color, from 

 a tender rose-coior to a deep red-orange, and this color was found prin- 

 cipally in certain parts of the fish (the two muscular bands lying along- 

 side of the backbone), leaving here and there portions which were en- 

 tirely sound. Especially in those codfish which had an orange-red color 

 the spoiled portious exhaled a putrid odor; the muscular fiber crum- 

 bled to pieces, and had lost all consistence. 



It will be seen that in the three cases where the red color was noticed 

 there was observed at the same time a putrid odor and a crumbling of 

 the muscular fiber — plain indications that the flesh of the codfish had 

 become decayed. 



It appears from the brief examination of the physical character of 

 poisonous codfish that in two-thirds of the cases observed there was no 

 red color, while the putrid odor and the crumbling of the flesh were 

 observed in all cases. 



There is, therefore, uo reason to assume that the red color of codfish 

 is an indication of their being poisonous, because on the one hand the 

 most numerous and most serious cases of sickness have been caused by 

 codfish which did not have its red color, and because, on the other 

 hand, in cases of sickness caused by red codfish there was at the same 

 time noticed a putrid odor and the crumbling of the flesh — the only in- 

 dications (we must repeat it) common to all cases, and the only ones 

 which can be considered in the etiology of cases of poisoning of this 

 kind. In short, these codfish did not cause cases of poisoning because 

 they were red, but because they were more or less decayed or pu trifled. 



Although there is no absolute identity of symptoms between the cases 



