POISONOUS FISHES OF WEST INDIES 



is a valuable food fish, but it has long been known 

 that individual specimens may be poisonous, 

 causing severe illness and even death. There is 

 evidently something more in this than ptomaine 

 poisoning due to eating fish that is not fresh, and 

 the probability is that the poisonous quality of the 

 flesh is not directly caused by the barracuda feed- 

 ing in certain places or on smaller poisonous fish. 



"It seems more likely that barracuda are 

 poisonous when suffering from an infectious dis- 

 ease. Plee has stated that when barracuda are 

 poisonous this can be recognized by a thin white 

 fluid running out of the flesh when it is cut, 

 whilst Poey says that poisonous barracuda have 

 the teeth blackish at the roots. 



"However, no real investigation of the matter 

 on scientific lines has been made, and it is quite 

 likely that were such investigation made the 

 cause might prove to be quite different from what 

 has been supposed. 



"Cavally or cavalla or caballa. These names 

 are applied to Scombromosus caballa, a large 

 fish of the mackerel family (Scombridse) rather 

 similar in appearance to the barracuda, and like 

 it a valuable food fish. The flesh of fishes of this 

 family decomposes very rapidly in the tropics 

 and cases of poisoning by this species are prob- 

 ably due to this cause. 



"These names are also generic terms for fishes 

 75 



