PUTRID POISONS. 387 



The poison of bad sausages belongs to this class 

 of noxious substances. Several hundred cases are 

 known in which death has occurred from the use of 

 this kind of food. In Wiirtemberg, especially, these 

 cases are very frequent, for there the sausages are 

 prepared from very various materials. Blood, liver, 

 bacon, brains, milk, meal, and bread, are mixed to- 

 gether with salt and spices ; the mixture is then put 

 into bladders or intestines, and after being boiled is 

 smoked. 



When these sausages are well prepared, they may 

 be preserved for months, and furnish a nourishing, 

 savoury food; but when the spices and salt are de- 

 ficient, and particularly when they are smoked too 

 late or not sufficiently, they undergo a peculiar kind 

 of putrefaction, which begins at the centre of the 

 sausage. Without any appreciable escape of gas 

 taking place they become paler in color, and more 

 soft and greasy in those parts which have under- 

 gone putrefaction, and they are found to contain free 

 lactic acid, or lactate of ammonia, products which 

 are universally formed during the putrefaction of 

 animal and vegetable matters. 



The cause of the poisonous nature of these sau- 

 sages was ascribed at first to hydrocyanic acid, and 

 afterwards to sebacic acid, although neither of these 

 substances had been detected in them. But sebacic 

 acid is no more poisonous than benzoic acid, with 

 which it has so many properties in common ; and the 

 symptoms produced are sufficient to show that hy- 

 drocyanic acid is not the poison. 



The death which is the consequence of poisoning 

 by putrefied sausages succeeds very lingering and 

 remarkable symptoms. There is a gradual wasting 

 of muscular fibre, and of all the constituents of the 

 body similarly composed; the patient becomes much 

 emaciated, dries to a complete mummy, and finally 

 dies. The carcass is stiff as if frozen, and is not 

 subject to putrefaction. During the progress of the 



