Page:The Harveian oration 1888.djvu/25

17 the result of albuminous or proteid decomposition or putrefaction, certain animal alkaloids are produced, similar in their nature and in their chemical composition to the vegetable alkaloids. Some of these products, or ptomaines as they are called, are innocuous, others possess poisonous properties varying in degree from the slighter forms to the most intense activity. Nearly 70 yeai-s ago Kerner pointed out the similarity of the effects produced by sausage-poison to those produced by atropine, but the symptoms are slower in appearing—sometimes two, three, or four days may elapse before they manifest themselves. Dr Alfred Swaine Taylor mentions the fact that in 1859 sixty-four persons suffered from the poisonous effects of a certain batch of sausages, only one case however proving fatal. Chemical analysis of the sausages yielded nothing of a poisonous nature, though there could be no doubt that they had caused the symptoms and death. The symptoms were—burning in the throat and stomach, followed by vomiting and purging; giddiness and confusion in the head, and in some cases delirium.

It might now possibly be urged, with our present knowledge, that the symptoms arose from the formation of an animal alkaloid in the meat, developed through the agency of such an organism as Cohn's bacterium termo or Bienstock's drumstick bacillus.

From partial decay, through the agency of Tyrothrix tenuis or some other bacterium, cheese sometimes acquires irritant properties and will give rise to vomiting and purging more or less violent in those who have eaten it.

Pickled or tinned salmon, salted herrings and even fresh mussels, are examples of articles of diet which have caused poioonous symptoms in those who have partaken of them.

In 1856 Panum showed that these effects were the result of