470 
POISONOUS EXHALATIONS. 
A labourer in a neighbouring village died in consequence of 
the sting of a fly, which he received on the back of his left hand 
a few days before. The arm of another has mortified so far as 
the elbow joint, from a similar cause. The physicians of Magde- 
burgh thought it probable that the flies which stung these indi¬ 
viduals took the poison which they communicated from cattle 
that had died of malignant fever, and whose carcases had been 
left unburied. 
Several proprietors of cattle were afflicted with dangerous 
fevers, from having touched the mouths or gangrenous ulcers of 
cattle labouring under inflammatory fever. Some men died who 
had bled heifers attacked with this disease. A woman who 
drank milk from a cow thus diseased, died: and several dogs 
and pigs died within twenty-four hours after having eaten of the 
flesh. 
We may add to the above, that M. Fcedere {sur les EpidtmieSf 
p. 117) states, that a febrile dysentery prevailed among the troops 
atEntrevaux, produced by the flesh of cattle that had been over¬ 
driven, and were afflicted with red-water: that at a village near 
Nice, a man died, and all his family became dreadfully ill, after 
eating the flesh of a cow that died of the epidemic then pre¬ 
vailing : and that so many accidents of the same nature occurred 
during another epidemic, that the sale of the flesh of cattle that 
had died of it was forbidden, under a heavy penalty. 
About four years ago I was examining a cow that died of in¬ 
flammatory fever. I was immediately afterwards seized wdth 
violent vomiting, and felt considerable lassitude for several days. 
The butcher who opened her became dangerously ill. 
In the year 1823, I was required to ascertain the cause of the 
death of four cows that had dropped suddenly. A saturated 
solution of corrosive sublimate had been applied as a cure for 
mange. The butcher who opened them for me took to his bed 
the same evening, and had severe inflammatory fever. 
A singular case connected with the above, and shewing the 
rapidity with which the animal fluids may be converted into the 
direst poisons, is extracted from the Journal der Practischeri 
Heilkunde. A person at Munster quarrelled with a soldier 
who lodged in his house. The latter drew his sabre and attacked 
his host, whose wife, terrified at the danger of her husband, 
rushed upon his adversary and wrested the weapon from him. 
She then, in the highest state of agitation, took her infant from 
the cradle and applied it to her breast. The child had scarcely 
began to suck ere it sighed, and expired. The milk of the 
mother had been converted into a deadly poison. 
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