Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/379

 "No general reaction is known by which the ptomaines can be distinguished from the vegetable alkaloids. But we know that animal alkaloids always develop either as a result of decay of food or of the decay of the body itself."

At one stroke Kennedy had reopened the closed case and had placed the experts at sea.

"I find that there is an animal conine as well as the true conine," he hammered out. "The truth of this matter is that the experts have confounded vegetable conine with cadaveric conine. That raises an interesting question. Assuming the presence of conine, where did it come from?"

He paused and began a new line of attack. "As the use of canned goods becomes more and more extensive, ptomaine poisoning is more frequent. In canning, the cans are heated. They are composed of thin sheets of iron coated with tin, the seams pressed and soldered with a thin line of solder. They are filled with cooked food, sterilised, and closed. The bacteria are usually all killed, but now and then, the apparatus does not work, and they develop in the can. That results in a 'blown can'—the ends bulge a little bit. On opening, a gas escapes, the food has a bad odour and a bad taste. Sometimes people say that the tin and lead poison them; in practically all cases the poisoning is of bacterial, not metallic, origin. Mr. Godwin may have died of poisoning, probably did. But it was ptomaine poisoning. The blown cans which I have discovered would indicate that."

I was following him closely, yet though this