PHYSOPHORID^. l^y 



' bouillon ; ' I swallowed the dose without the least fear, and I felt no 

 inconvenience from it." 



After these experiments, which are certainly quite conclusive, 

 what are we to think of the story related of a certain M. Te'be, the 

 managing partner of a house in Guadaloupe, who fell a victim to his 

 cook, who it is said, after having sought in vain to poison him 

 with the raspings of his nails, which he had spread carefully over the 

 roasted fish daily served up for dinner, determined, seeing that he 

 had signally failed by other means, to put into his soup a pulverised 

 Physalia. An hour after his repast, this gentleman appeared in the 

 burgh of Lamantin, at a little distance from his habitation, and, while 

 entering the city with some friends, he was seized with violent pains 

 in the stomach and intestines, racking him as if by the most corrosive 

 poison. His illness increased until the next day, when he died, under 

 the most excruciating pains. On examination, the stomach and in- 

 testines were found to be violently inflamed and corroded, as if he 

 had been poisoned with arsenic, and I have no doubt that it was with 

 this poison, or some other corrosive substance, and not with the 

 Physalia, that M. Tebd really was poisoned. The negroes never 

 make known the substance with v/hich they commit a poisoning ; 

 they confess all but the truth, which they are sworn never to reveal 

 — the means they employ, so far as the poisoning material is con- 

 cerned, are never communicated by confession. 



On the other hand, we read in P. Labat's Voyage, vol. ii., p. 31, 

 " that the becune should not be eaten without some precaution, for 

 this fish being extremely voracious, greedily devours all that comes 

 within its reach in and out of the water, and it often happens that it 

 meets and swallows 'galleys,' which are very caustic, and a violent 

 poison. The fish does not die, but its flesh absorbs the venom, and 

 poisons those who eat it." " There is every reason to believe," says 

 M. Leblond, in the work already quoted, " that the sardine, as well as 

 many other species of fish, after having ate the tentacles of the 

 'galley,' acquires a poisonous quality. Supping at an auberge on 

 one occasion, with other persons, a becune was served up, of which 

 gastronomers are very fond, and which is usually perfectly harmless : 

 five persons partook of it, and immediately afterwards exhibited every 

 symptom of being poisoned. This was manifested by a burning heat 

 in the region of the stomach. I bled two of them : one was cured 

 by vomiting ; one other would take nothing but tea and some culinary 

 oil. The colic continued during the night, and had disappeared in 

 the morning, but he entertained so great a horror of water, that 

 during the remainder of the voyage a glass of it presented to him 



K 2 



