POISONOUS MUSSELS. 37 



none suffered immediately after taking them. In general, 

 an hour or two elapsed, sometimes more ; and the bad 

 effects consisted rather in uneasy feelings and debility than 

 in any distress referable to the stomach. Some children 

 suffered from eating only two or three ; and it will be re- 

 membered that Robertson, a young and healthy man, only 

 took five or six. In two or three hours they complained 

 of a slight tension at the stomach. One or two had cardi- 

 algia, nausea, and vomiting ; but these were not general or 

 lasting symptoms. They then complained of a prickly feel- 

 ing in their haudsj heat and constriction of the mouth and 

 throat; difficulty of swallowing and speaking freely; numb- 

 ness about the mouth, gi-adually extending to the arms, with 

 great debility of the limbs. The degree of muscular de- • 

 bility varied a good deal, but was an invariable symptom. 

 In some it merely prevented them from walking firmly, 

 but in most of them it amounted to perfect inability to 

 stand. While in bed they could move their limbs with 

 tolerable freedom, but on being raised to the perpendicular 

 posture they felt their limbs sink under them. Some com- 

 plained of a bad, coppery taste in the mouth, but in general 

 this was in answer to what lawyers call a leading question. 

 There was slight pain of the abdomen, increased on pres- 

 sure, particularly in the region of the bladder, which organ 

 sufiered variously in its functions. In some the secretion 

 of urine was suspended, in others it was free, but passed 

 with pain and great eifort. The action of the heart was 

 feeble ; the breathing unaffected ; the face pale, expressive 

 of much anxiety; the surface rather cold; the mental 

 faculties unimpaired. Unluckily, the two fatal cases were 

 not seen by any medical person ; and we are, therefore, 

 unable to state minutely the train of symptoms. We ascer- 

 tained that the woman, in whose house were five sufferers, 

 went away as in a gentle sleep, and that a few moments 

 before death she had spoken and swallowed." 



The woman died within three hours, and the other death 

 was that of a watchman, who was found dead in his box 

 six or seven hours after he had eaten the mussels. Post- 



3 



