520 
ON THE POISON WHICH IS DEVELOPED IN MEATS AND 
SAUSAGES. 
CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE VARIOUS HYPOTHESES RELATIVE TO 
THE NATURE OF THIS POISONOUS PRINCIPLE, WITH THE ANNOUNCE¬ 
MENT OF A NEW THEORY OF ITS TRUE ESSENCE. 
By M. E. Van den Corput. 
(Continued from p. 490.) 
The investigation of this mysterious poison, naturally 
could not but excite the sagacity of chemists and toxico¬ 
logists. Many eminent men of science, Kerner, Emmert, 
Buchner, Schumann, Liebig, and, more recently, Professor 
Schlossberger (see The Chemist , April, 1855, p. 442), have 
made it the subject of special researches ; but the difference 
of the various opinions which these scientific men have 
published, and the contrariety of the results at which they 
have arrived, demonstrate pre-eminently the difficulty of 
such a study. 
Before discussing the different hypotheses which have 
been enunciated on this very obscure subject, we will inquire 
whether analogous examples of poisoning have not been ob¬ 
served, owing to the use of other alimentary matters. 
In looking over the principal works which treat of toxi¬ 
cology, we are at once struck with the great number of acci¬ 
dents which have been caused by the use of certain decayed 
meats of pork-shops, and with the perfect similarity of the 
symptoms produced by the latter with those which we have 
just described as appertaining to the botulic poison. 
It is, on the other hand, now known in science, contrary 
to what had long been admitted on the faith of a vulgar pre¬ 
judice, that unprepared meats, although they may have 
arrived at afar advanced stage of putrefaction,and even when 
obtained from diseased animals, may, after being cooked, 
with impunity be introduced into the food of man, without 
occasioning the least inconvenience. 
This fact results from a long series of experimental re¬ 
searches, undertaken at the Veterinary School of Alfort and 
elsewhere, by MM. Huzard, Renault and others; which re¬ 
searches demonstrate most unquestionably that the meats of 
diseased animals, even when they have died of contagious or 
inoculable afflictions, such as carbuncle and farcy, may with¬ 
out danger form part of our daily regimen. Moreover, M. 
Flourens relates that, during the fatal period of 1789, the 
poor of St. Germain and of Alfort ate 700 or 800 horses 
