Catesby (1754) writing of the Bahama barracuda gives some details not found in any earlier writer. He evidently wrote of large specimens, for he says: "The flesh has a very rank and disagreeable favour [flavour?] both to the nose and palate, and is frequently poisonous, causing great sickness, vomiting, and intolerable pains in the head, with loss of hair and nails; yet the hungry Bahamians frequently repast on their unwholesome carcasses." Fermin (1769) says that the becune has firm, white flesh, somewhat oily, but of very good taste. However, it is not to be eaten save after taking the precautions noted above. He explains the poisonous prop erties of its flesh by its voracious feeding habits, especially by its feeding on the manchineel.
In 1808 a Dr. Chisholm published an article on the poison of fish.
His observations were made while a resident of the island of Grenada, where he appears to have practiced medicine. He knew of and ably treated cases of poisoning resulting from eating the barracuda.
He says that the fishermen account for this poison by alleging that the fish are poisonous only at the spawning season when they repair to and feed upon " sea-moss " [which Chisholm identifies as Corallina opuntia]. This poisons them and they in turn poison those who eat it. After their return from the banks, the poison gradually leaves them and they become wholesome again.
Chisholm notes that copper is supposed to be the essential basis of this poison, but adds that he knows of "no facts which decidedly prove this." As to the value of salt as a preventive he says: "A barracuda, the poisonous quality of which was proved by its entrails killing a cat which had ate of them, being cut into slices or junks, and slightly salted or corned, was rendered perfectly wholesome, and, as usual delicious to the taste. Instances have occurred, however, in which salt has not exhibited its counteracting power." Moreau de Jonnes, as early as 1819, and 1821, made extensive and intensive studies of poisoning resulting from eating fishes, the barracuda among others. In his later and fuller paper, he quotes various authors that crabs which eat the fruit of the manchineel become poisonous (thus confirming that very accurate observer, William Dampier), while those which have no access to this fruit are wholesome. He then takes up and disposes of the alleged causes of the poisonous quality of the flesh of certain fishes. He states that the first cause commonly assigned is that the fishes eat poisonous zoophytes. This he rejects because poisonous fish are found where these are absent and whole some fish where they abound, because the same fish where these abound are not poisonous throughout the year, and lastly because he fed poi sonous hydroids of all kinds to fishes and then fed these fishes to vari ous animals and to man with impunity. The second reason adduced is
that the fishes are poisoned by copper. Moreau de Jonnes, however, notes that copper is present and fishes wholesome on the English coast and that copper is absent and fishes poisonous in the West Indies, and finally that oysters grow on the copper bottoms of vessels and have been found wholesome when eaten. Then he takes up the manchineel theory. He notes that no one has ever proved that fishes eat the man chineel fruit, and that he has made many dissections of poisonous fishes (barracudas among them) without ever having found fragments of the manchineel fruit in them. He thinks that the eaters would be killed by the eating, and that, since these trees abound widely on sea shores, there should be many more poisonous fish and crabs than there are. Finally, for himself he concludes that poisoning from eating fishes (barracudas included) is due to the fact that the flesh has some inherent poisonous properties, or develops such morbid qualities as a result of the hot climate. While our author gives the former explana tion his very strong belief, we have in the second a premonition of the ptomaine theory.
Another physician, William Ferguson, writing some years later (1823), declares that the size of the fish has nothing to do with its poisonous qualities, nor does the use of salt destroy its noxious prop erties. Then he refers to a report from a physician in Martinique concerning a family which had been poisoned by eating a barracuda which had lain in salt 24 hours.
The most extensive and possibly the most interesting account of poisoning by the barracuda is given by Cuvier and Valenciennes (1829) in their treatment of Sphyrcena barracuda. The M. Plee quoted seems to have been a French naturalist who lived in the West Indies. Appar ently his manuscript was sent directly to Cuvier, who writes in the first person: "All that has been reported concerning poisonous fishes of warm countries and that malady called Siguatera, which is found under certain circumstances, has the power of inspiring curiosity and interest, so that I have thought I ought to insert here the data collected by M. PI& on the barracuda, just as I have found it among the papers of that unfortunate naturalist.