ZOOTOXINS 185 



with the season of the year in which the fish is taken. Poisoning 

 by these fish is very violent, the symptoms appearing very 

 soon, and the cases are divided into two groups by Savtschenko, 

 as .the algid, or choleriform, and the gastro-intestinal type. The 

 symptoms of the algid form appear almost immediately after 

 eating the fish, and consist of pain in the stomach, with great 

 fear and distress ; soon diarrhea and vomiting set in, with 

 cramps in the arms and legs ; this terminates in collapse, coma, 

 and death from either respiratory or cardiac paralysis. The 

 entire course of the process may be but ten to twenty minutes, 

 or it may be as many hours. On account of the localization 

 of the poison in the eggs and ovaries not all persons who eat 

 the fish are poisoned, and not all who are poisoned receive a 

 fatal dose. In the gastro-intestinal form the symptoms appear 

 later, consist chiefly of gastro-intestinal disturbances resembling 

 more closely ptomam poisoning, and the prognosis is not so bad 

 as in the algid form. 



The pathological anatomy of this form of poisoning has not 

 been carefully studied, but no characteristic or striking ana- 

 tomical changes have been noted in the bodies examined. 

 Tahara 1 has described a crystalline body, tetrodonin, and a 

 toxic acid, tetrodonie acid, which are highly toxic ; these were 

 isolated from the ovaries of Tetrodon. 2 



In this connection may be mentioned the peculiar erysipelas- 

 like lesions caused by bites of crabs, which indicates the forma- 

 tion of some toxic product by these crustaceans. Gilchrist 3 

 obtained a history of bites or injuries by crabs in 323 of 329 

 cases of " erysipeloid." 



EEL SERUM 



In 1888 4 Mosso studied the toxic properties of eel serum, 

 which he found was extremely poisonous for experimental ani- 

 mals, 0.1 to 0.3 c.c. per kilo being fatal for rabbits and dogs 

 in a few minutes if intravenously injected ; introduced into the 

 stomach it is not toxic. The poisonous principle he called 

 ichthyotoxin. Death results from respiratory failure with large 

 doses ; small doses lead to cachexia and death after a few days. 

 The coagulability of the blood is greatly reduced. Kossel 5 

 found histological changes in the central nervous system in such 

 animals, that resembled the lesions of tetanus. He succeeded 



1 Eef. in Maly's Jahresber., 1894 (24), 450. 



2 Arch. exp. Path. u. Pharm., 1890 (26), 401 and 453. 



3 Jour. Cutaneous Diseases, November, 1904. 



4 Arch. Ital. de Biol., 1888 (10), 141 ; 1889 (12), 229. 

 6 Berl. klin. Woch., 1898 (35), 152. 



