[23] POISONING BY EED CODFISH. 1049 



poisonous substances. Mucb remains, doubtless, to be done, both from 

 a chemical point of view and from that of physiological experimenting, 

 in order to throw full light on this but little explored held of the toxi- 

 cology of cadaveric alkaloids ; but the results which have been readied 

 thus far justify the hope that science will finally succeed in solving all 

 the knotty problems of this question. 



We will close this chapter by the report of a personal experience re- 

 garding the eating of putrefied codfish: During the first days of April 

 two reliable codfish dealers of our city furnished me, at my request, with 

 a number of dried codfish which had been more or less tainted with red ; 

 and three of the oldest and most decayed codfish which could be found 

 among the refuse of their drying-houses. 



These three codfish, three years old, and destined to be sold as grease, 

 showed all the signs of putrefaction — a putrid odor, and flesh which 

 throughout was of a brownish color, and easily crumbled to pieces. 

 The outside showed many red spots scattered irregularly over the entire 

 body. 



I gave these three old codfish, raw, and without being prepared in 

 any way whatever, to fhree dogs of the physiological laboratory of the 

 Faculty of Medicine, which Professor OrC kindly placed at my disposal. 

 JSTone of these three dogs were inconvenienced thereby. They neither 

 vomited, nor had they attacks of diarrhea, or any other symptoms of 

 sickness ; and still the codfish of which they had eaten was old and 

 thoroughly decayed. 



May we conclude from this experiment that the eating of such cod- 

 fish would not produce cases of sickness in a human being ? I do not 

 believe it. Dogs are in the habit of eating all sorts of impure matter, 

 and putrefied substances, without suffering any bad consequences. 



The same would hardly be the case with man, whose stomach is of a 

 much more delicate organization; and one should be careful not to 

 draw any conclusion as regards man, as to the harmless character of 

 spoiled articles of food, from cases iu which dogs ate such articles with 

 impunity. To make the experiment complete, I should also have eaten 

 of the spoiled codfish, but I freely confess that I did not have the cour- 

 age to let my scientific devotion go so far. I contented myself by eat- 

 ing red, but otherwise sound, codfish at two consecutive meals; and I 

 can state that I digested it perfectly without the least trouble, like all 

 the members of my family who partook of it with me. 



It may, therefore, be considered as settled that the red codfish has no 

 hurtful quality, and that dogs could eat, without being iu the slightest 

 inconvenienced, raw codfish, three years old, intended to be used for 

 grease, and showing every sign of putrefaction. Should we admit that 

 the poisonous products of putrefied codfish do not act on dogs, or that 

 these products, poisonous at a certain given time, are finally destroyed 

 by the process of putrefaction ? These questions can only be solved 

 by new researches, and by much more numerous experiments. 



