1042 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [16] 



much less subject to being infected by red color than those which have 

 been well salted. When fresh — and even when dried — they exhale, 

 according to the statements of dealers whom we have consulted, a very 

 strong odor of garlic; their flesh is soft, and an impression made with 

 the finger will remain. When cooked they exhale a putrid odor, char- 

 acteristic of their decay, which generally prevents people from eating 

 tuem. 



There are "soft-salted" codfish which accidentally have been badly 

 salted at the fishing stations. Their number, however, is small; but 

 there are large quantities of badly salted codfish simply owing to the 

 fact that the fishermen, with the view to making greater j^aius, have 

 been too saving with their salt. Insufficiently salted codfish keep a 

 much larger quantity of water in their flesh than well salted ones, and 

 consequently weigh heavier when they reach the French ports, where 

 they are sold by weight. 



This method of insufficiently salting codfish can not be censured too 

 severely, and dealers can nut be too careful in this respect, as both from 

 a hygienic and from a commercial point of view the consequences may 

 be most deplorable. 



IV. — NATURE OF THE POISONOUS SUBSTANCE CONTAINED IN PUTRE- 

 FIED CODFISH. 



The cases of poisoning observed, which we have described in the 

 first part of this treatise, prove beyond a doubt that spoiled codfish 

 contains a poisonous substance which, when eaten, is liable to cause in 

 human beings more or less serious cases of sickness resembling cholera 

 in its symptoms. We deem it proper to enter somewhat into detail re- 

 garding the nature of this poison ; and it may be stated here that there 

 are weighty reasons for supposiug that the poisonous substance of pu- 

 trefied codfish is a cadaveric alkaloid or ptomaine. 



This last-mentioned word was introduced to science in 1872 by Pro 

 lessor Selmi, of Bologna, who first of all toxicologists called attention 

 to the existence of small quantities of poisonous alkaloids which could 

 be extracted from human bodies, which had not been poisoned, after 

 having lain in the ground for some time. He proposed for these poison- 

 ous substances the name ptomaine (from the Greek word -Tw/j.a, cadaver), 

 and pointed out the possibility of confounding these substances with 

 vegetable alkaloids. In 1870 Selmi's attention was for the first time 

 directed to the existence of these alkaloids. He produced, according 

 to the method of Stas, from the entrails of a man who was supposed to 

 have been poisoned an alkaloid which he could not identify with any 

 of the poisonous alkaloids hitherto known. But it was only in 1874, 

 and later, in 1878, that Selmi again took up this question and made ex- 

 periments on a large scale on human bodies which had been buried lor 

 several months. By these experiments Selmi established, beyond the 

 shadow of a doubt, the fact that poisonous alkaloids will develop in the 

 course of putrefaction. 



