EDIBILITY OF THE FLESH OF POISONED ANIMALS. 
209 
injection of strychnine, eserine, morphine or veratrine the 
adjacent tissues, to the point of puncture, are dangerous, de¬ 
spite the fact that the poison is rapidly imbibed by the circu¬ 
lation. That such cases may occur in the practice, is shown 
by an observation in Adam’s Wochenschrift (1861), where the 
flesh of a cow treated with veratrum caused nausea and vomit¬ 
ing, when consumed. Another possibility is, that such meat 
may be more dangerous for man than for animals ; atropin, for 
instance, operates much stronger as a poison upon man than 
upon quadrupeds. It is known that man has been poisoned 
by eating of rabbits and hare that had succumbed from con¬ 
suming the leaves of atropa belladonna. 
The small number of experiments and observations upon 
the subject are directly against a toxicological action of the 
flesh. Harms fed, without injury, the flesh of a horse which 
had received 50.0 grms. of nux vomica decoct, to three 
dogs weighing from 1 to 3 pounds ; the same writer records 
that the meat of a cow which had received 46.0 grms. of tart, 
emetic was neither injurious to man or dogs ; Feser has ex¬ 
perimentally proved that the flesh of animals poisoned with 
strychnine and eserine may be eaten with impunity; Lappa 
and Spallanzani arrived at the same conclusion respecting 
arsenically poisoned animals ; the result of Sonnenschein’s 
investigations upon the flesh of a cow that had received al¬ 
together over a pound of arsenic, showed only 0.0002 grms. 
of the substance in a kilogram of the meat—surely not a 
dangerous quantity. * 
In order to answer this question for ourselves, we insti¬ 
tuted a series of experiments upon sheep, with strychnine 
and eserine; while strychnine is the most deadly alkaloid for 
most domestic animals, the alkaloid physostigmine is more 
poisonous to the dog and to man. The result of the experi¬ 
ments,‘especially regarding the latter drug, are of practical 
value. These trials consisted in poisoning sheep with 
strychnine and eserine and afterward determining the toxico¬ 
logical character of the meat by the following means: par¬ 
taking of the flesh ourselves, feeding it to dogs, by chemical 
analysis, by physiological action upon other animals; the re- 
I 
