200 FOOD POISONING. 



Potain saw a man suffering from vomiting, vertigo, ringing in the 

 ears, and pain in the joints, due to eating lobster. 



Griffiths found in sardines that had undergone putrefactive 

 changes a base to which he has given the name Sardinia ; th?.s pto- 

 main, together with others reported by the same investigator, is de- 

 scribed in Chapter XIV. 



5. In Russia many instances of fish poisoning are due to the fact 

 that the fish are diseased and the disease is transmitted to man in 

 his food. Instances of this kind of fish poisoning are well known 

 in Germany also, and here they are generally due to eating diseased 

 barbels. The symptoms are identical with those of cholera nostras, 

 and the disease is known as " barbencholera." The poison, the 

 nature of which is yet unknown, evidently irritates the mucous mem- 

 brane of the stomach and intestines. This form of fish poisoning is 

 sometimes called ichthyotoxismus gastricus. 



Schmidt concludes his studies on poisonous fish in Eussia with 

 the following statements : (1) Poisoning with fish is not due to 

 putrefaction. (2) Fish poisoning (in Eussia) is always due to some 

 member of the sturgeon tribe. (3) The genesis of fish poisoning 

 has no relation to the method of catching the fish, the use of salt, or 

 imperfections in the method of preserving them. (4) The poisonous 

 substance is not distributed throughout the animal, but is confined to 

 certain parts. (5) The poisonous portion cannot be distinguished 

 from the non-poisonous, either macroscopically or microscopically, 

 (6) The thoroughly cooked meat is never poisonous. (7) The fish 

 poison is an animal alkaloid, produced most probably by bacteria 

 that cause an infectious disease in the fish. 



Arustamow has studied eleven cases of fish poisoning in which 

 five terminated fatally. In the fish, and in the liver, kidneys and 

 spleen of the persons, germs, resembling but not identical with the 

 typhoid bacillus, were found. The most noteworthy symptoms were 

 general weakness, dull pain in the abdomen, dyspnoea, mydriasis, ver- 

 tigo, and dryness of the mouth. This author also concludes that the 

 ill effects are due to bacteria which are pathogenic to the fish and in 

 the cases observed by him the meat was eaten raw. 



Sieber found that the fish in an aquarium, from which some had 

 been taken to supply a table and had proved poisonous, were sick 

 and that as many as thirty died within the next two days. From 

 the dead and sick fish Sieber obtained by anaerobic methods a highly 

 toxicogenic germ to which she has given the name Bacillus piscicidus 

 agilis. This germ consists of highly motile short rods, and old 

 cultures show spore formation. The bacilli are easily colored with 

 Ziehl's solution and on gelatin and agar plates the colonies are gran- 

 ular, gray, or yellow. This organism liquefies gelatin and produces 

 carbonic acid gas and small quantities of methyl mercaptan. It is 

 pathogenic to fish, frogs, mice, rabbits, dogs and guinea-pigs, and 



