Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/265

Rh old, and then coat them with the sap of a certain creeping plant. Before discharging the arrow they dip it into water. A serious wound caused by such an arrow is inevitably followed by death in from three to five days. Report as to a similar practice comes from the Narrinjeris, inhabitants of South Australia. They are said to wound their enemies by splinters of bone previously plunged into corpses undergoing putrefaction.

Jacob Doepler, in his "Theatrum Pœnarum," mentions a method of poisoning wells, the account of which was formerly discredited, but has become plausible in the light of modern researches. He states that people suffering from leprosy took of their blood, mixed it with herbs and toad-spawn, formed little pellets of the mixture, and threw the pellets weighted with stones into the wells. Many people who drank from these wells were taken with the same disease, and some of them died. This happened in the reign of Philip V of France, who caused all lepers cognizant of the outrage to be burned, and the Jews, who were accused of being the instigators of the crime, to be persecuted.

That many who drank of such water should become leprous seems very likely, inasmuch as the partaking of spoiled food causes eruption of the skin, nettle-rash, etc., in many persons; chiefly are these symptoms to be noticed after eating spoiled fish. Of course the effects are more serious with some persons than with others. Some people are so sensitive that partaking of fish, seemingly fresh, will cause them inconvenience; others are liable to suffer from a peculiar eruption of the skin after eating crabs or lobsters. Possibly the meat of these animals, even when in the normal condition, contains neurine sufficient to exert its influence on persons susceptible to it, while it may not affect others at all. In the maize-porridge which is called "polenta," and which is the chief food of a certain class of Italian working-men, there is formed, by putrefaction, during the hot months, a poison which causes "pellagra." This is an eruption of the skin, resembling erysipelas, which grows worse in time and finally induces death.

In connection with this subject, the investigations of Pouchet must be referred to. Pouchet isolated a ptomaine from the excreta of cholera-patients, which seemed to possess highly poisonous properties, for, when he tried to crystallize the salt he had obtained, he inhaled the fumes, and eighteen hours later was seized with chills and cramps in the limbs, while he also experienced an irregular pulse and nausea without vomiting. His assistant, who was not so much exposed to the fumes, was taken ill with the same symptoms, but not to the same extent.

The development of cholera and the processes of putrefaction are ascribed to the agency of minute living organisms, the bacilli, a great variety of which have been found in cases of putrefaction and infectious diseases. Professor Brieger has discovered in both fresh meat