Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/504

 any mineral poison, it probably owed its qualities to the same ingredient as the bacon in Geiseler's cases. A full and interesting account of an accident of the kind has also been given by M. Ollivier, of which the following is an analysis. Three members of a family at Paris, on the day after eating a ham-pie, were seized with shivering, cold sweats, violent pain in the stomach, frequent vomiting, burning thirst, excessive tenderness of the belly, profuse purging, and colic; but they all recovered under antiphlogistic treatment. On subsequent inquiry it appeared that about the same period other customers of the pastry-cook who supplied the pie had been similarly affected; and consequently an investigation was made into the cause under the authority of the police. After a very careful analysis, however, by MM. Barruel and Ollivier, it was clearly made out, that the pie did not contain a trace of any of the common mineral poisons; and therefore the only conclusion Ollivier conceived it possible to draw was, that the ham had acquired the properties of the poisonous sausage or cheese of Germany. Two similar reports have been since published, one by MM. Lecanu, Labarraque, and Delamorlière, another by Chevallier; and both agree in ascribing the poisonous effects to the decay of the meat, the ordinary poisons having been sought for in vain. In the cases examined by Chevallier, the article was a sort of sausage, called in Paris "Italian Cheese," and made of scraps of various kinds of meat, especially pork. M. Boutigny has published an account of a similar accident which befel a great number of people at a festival in France. He could not find any of the ordinary poisons in the meat, which had been taken chiefly in the form of sausages; and being consequently persuaded that the suspected articles were wholesome, he dined on stuffed turkey, sold by the dealer who had supplied them. But he was seized with chilliness, contracted pulse, cold sweating, lividity of the countenance, great anxiety, and then with vomiting and purging; after which he slowly recovered.

Other articles of food have been occasionally observed to act injuriously on the health. Thus M. Ollivier has given an account of a whole family having been apparently poisoned with mutton under the influence of modified decay. Six individuals were attacked soon after dinner with vomiting, purging, colic, tenderness of the belly, extreme prostration, and a small hurried pulse. Four of them died within eight days. General inflammatory redness, with some extravasation under the mucous coat, was found throughout the whole course of the small intestines. No trace could be detected of any of the ordinary poisons; and Ollivier was therefore led to ascribe the accident to some peculiar change produced in stewed mutton, which all the individuals had partaken of at dinner. In 1839 a singular accident happened at Zurich, which was ascribed to decayed veal and ham. On a fete-day 600 people, who had dined upon cold