216 FOOB POISONING. 



tyrotoxicon undoubtedly grew abundantly in the milk and its toxin 

 was easily detected by both chemical and physiological tests. In the 

 same year Schearer found tyrotoxicon in milk used by, and in the 

 vomited matter of, persons made sick at a hotel at Corning, la. In 

 1887, Firth, an English army surgeon, stationed in India, reported 

 an outbreak of milk poisoning among the soldiers of his garrison. 

 From the milk he separated, by the method already given, tyrotoxi- 

 con and demonstrated its action upon the lower animals. In the 

 same year Vaughan reported the Milan cases of milk poisoning, 

 three of which terminated fatally. His report of his observation of 

 the symptoms is as follows : I first saw these patients, Sunday, Sep- 

 tember 25th; on a sofa in the room we found the daughter, who had 

 been vomiting during the day and seemed much exhausted. She 

 was not inclined to talk, and seemed to be in a stupor, though when 

 spoken to she responded rationally. Her pupils were slightly dilated, 

 her tongue coated, her pulse 120 and weak; her face pale; and a 

 violent throbbing could be felt over the abdomen, which was re- 

 tracted. Her temperature was 96° F. In another room were the 

 father, mother and son, two of them dying. The father was rational 

 and talked with some freedom, when asked concerning the kind of 

 food they had been eating. His pupils were normal, his face could 

 not be said to present any peculiar feature, his pulse was rapid, 

 breathing somewhat rapid, and the throbbing in the abdominal area 

 was plainly felt. The abdomen was retracted and there was no 

 pain on pressure. He complained of a burning constriction of the 

 throat, swallowed with difficulty, and said that his throat and stom- 

 ach felt as though they were on fire. The mother lay with eyelids 

 closed as if in a deep sleep. Her pulse was rapid, her face had a 

 livid flush, her breathing was about 35 per minute, and labored. 

 The skin was cool, but neither abnormally moist nor specially dry 

 and harsh. She could not be aroused. In fact, she was comatose. 

 The son rolled uneasily from one side of the bed to the other. His 

 breathing also was labored. His eyelids were closed, and the pupils 

 were markedly dilated — did not respond to light. He could not be 

 aroused. In mother and son, as well as in father and daughter, the 

 abdomen was retracted, and the throbbing in the abdominal area was 

 easily felt. 



The symptoms were not those of morphin, strychnin, digitalis, or 

 aconite. They did have some resemblance to those of belladonna 

 but were not identical ; the pupils were not so widely dilated as they 

 are in belladonna poisoning ; there was in none of these persons the 

 active delirium of belladonna poisoning ; there was no picking at the 

 clothing ; no grasping of imaginary objects in the air ; no hallucina- 

 tions of vision. 



The family, which consisted of the four sick persons and of a 

 daughter about twenty years of age, who was away from home at the 



