482 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



of the eyes. He had a normal appetite for breakfast and 

 did not notice his headache until after breakfast and thought 

 it might have been caused by the fumes of burning bacon when 

 the cook left a pan unwatched on the primus stove while he went 

 outdoors. At breakfast time Martin had a slight headache, but 

 said that he had a similar headache the two previous days and 

 that it had been no worse until the bacon fumes made it worse. 

 But during the forenoon it gradually increased and at noon he be- 

 came nauseated. The worst of his illness came about five o'clock. 

 By eight Emiu had been for several hours free from nausea and was 

 getting better when Martin was at his worst. The next morning 

 Emiu considered himself fully recovered but Martin still had a 

 slight headache and little appetite. Natkusiak had a slight head- 

 ache that day but he frequently had such headaches. His appe- 

 tite was normal and he had no inclination to nausea or any other 

 unusual symptoms. My own appetite was not good, but I referred 

 that to th'e fact that I had eaten four large meals of boiled ovibos 

 meat the day before. I had a very slight headache which came 

 on after the bacon fumes had filled the house and which appeared 

 to me to be due to that cause. 



Summing up our experience with bear liver, I should say that 

 fully three-quarters of the livers ever eaten by me or others when 

 I have been present have had no bad effect In fact, the percentage 

 is larger, for I have now told of all the experiments which resulted 

 in the marked illness of any one. The conclusion appears to be 

 that certain polar bear livers are slightly poisonous while others 

 are not. It is possible that thoroughness of cooking has a pro- 

 tective effect, although we are not sure of it. This was the last 

 occasion when I was able to get any member of my party to make 

 experiments with me. I myself have since eaten portions of six 

 or eight livers with no ill effects. That I have not eaten liver 

 more often is due partly to the fact that I like meat better and 

 that I have tried the liver only for experimental purposes. A con- 

 tributing reason for the fewness of these experiments hereafter was 

 that on this occasion we lost two good traveling days in waiting 

 for Emiu and Martin to recover, and time was now too valuable 

 to risk losing much of it. 



Storkerson had left no more than a mere note saying that he 

 was proceeding with his party to the head of Liddon Gulf. On 

 the third day after our arrival I had made up my mind to go to 

 the Bear with a fast dog team to see what the situation was and to 

 arrange with Captain Gonzales for the cooperation of the Bear 



