210 ON ANIMAL AND 



terious to the human constitution, and which, if 

 not attended to, will frequently occasion death ; 

 while others have the same effect upon particular 

 individuals only, or at certain periods, producing 

 a similar train of symptoms, differing in degree 

 according to the circumstances of the case. 



The first, or scaly poisonous fish, are more 

 peculiar to warm climates, though accidentally 

 they are to be met within the northerly latitudes : 

 the eating of them is always attended with the 

 greatest danger, not unfrequently producing death 

 in half an hour after they have been taken. 



The most poisonous of this class are the barra- 

 cuda, the king s fish, the cavallee, the rockjish, and 

 the most dangerous of all, the yellow bill sprat. 

 They are each to be found in the West Indian 

 seas ; and those fish which are the largest, and have 

 the fewest scales, the tropical fishermen consider 

 to be the most suspicious. The following account 

 of the symptoms produced by the tropical poison 

 fish has been taken from the work of Dr. Thomas, 

 who himself suffered from eating the rock fish. 



" Certain and rapid death is almost sure to 

 ensue from eating the yellow bill sprat. From 

 the use of this, and of most other species of poison 

 fish, the person is seized after a few hours with 

 languor, heaviness, and fairitness, succeeded by 

 great restlessness, flushes in the face, giddiness, 

 cardialga, nausea, pains in the intestines, and 

 severe cholera. The burning, which was only 



