382 Dr. Sangbusch on Fish Poison. 



headache, or violent swimming in the head : dilatation of the pupils, 

 immobility of the iris, blueness of the face : small, weak pulse : numb- 

 ness of the points of the fingers, coldness of the extremities, marked 

 sinking of the vital powers. If these symptoms go on increasing to a 

 certain point, death results from paralysis of the nervous system and 

 suffocation, consciousness remaining complete. The author never 

 observed convulsions. In cases of recovery, the collapse and the 

 characteristic symptoms suddenly cease. But giddiness, imperfect 

 vision, dilatation of the pupils, weakness and hoarseness of the voice, 

 and lassitude remain longer. Occasionally there is an increase of all 

 the symptoms, just before they begin to remit : sometimes also 

 before complete recovery, swelling of the parotids, with tendency to 

 abscess, takes place, as does at times erysipelatous swelling of the 

 face. The author has never observed any disturbance of the mental 

 powers as one of the sequelae. 



The symptoms thus detailed are dependent on a temporary excite- 

 ment of the blood vessels, which is, however, scarcely recognisable in 

 some cases, because as soon as the poison reaches the blood, it is 

 followed by a violent affection of the ganglionic system, and especially 

 of the great sympathetic and vagus nerves, while the brain and 

 spinal column sympathize. On reviewing the foregoing account of 

 the action of fish poison, we see that it corresponds very much with 

 that of poisonous sausages, with the exception of the paralysis of the 

 upper eyelid characterstic of the latter, which Dr. Sangbusch never 

 observed : on post mortem examination, there were observed signs of 

 inflammation and gangrene in the stomach and intestines, and traces 

 of previous inflammatory excitement in the mucous membrane of the 

 respiratory organs, heart and lungs ; liver and spleen, soft ; the blood 

 fluid ; no organic alteration of the nervous system. 



The effects of the poison developed under certain conditions by 

 living fish, vary according to its intensity and the constitution of the 

 party affected by it. In the slighter cases, the illness is confined to 

 oppression about the stomach, vomiting, diarrhoea, lassitude, thirst, 

 constriction of the forehead ; in severer cases the symptoms vary ac- 

 cording to the order of the fish from which the poison was derived. 



Thus the attacks caused by eating the Pike, Barbel or the Silurus 

 militant, the W[nr<vna conger, and the Bodianus guttatus and Casta- 



