SHRI3IPS AND LOBSTERS.—Potted shrimps (Lancet, Sept. 17, '9S) recently caused forty persons to suffer from vio lent gastrointestinal symptoms at St. Ann's-on-the-Sea. In this region the shrimp-nets are piled for some miles along the coast, where a deep channel divides the foreshore from the shallow banks. It is said that the shrimps were caught. potted, and used the same day. No deaths occurred, though some of the eases were serious. The fishermen con tend that the shrimps were caught where there could be no sewage pollution.
Lobsters and crabs are, of shell-fish, those most feared, but, judging from the few cases of poisoning credited to them, it is probable that they are no more toxic than other edible substances of the same class. Symptoms of typhoid may not only prevail, but the Widal test may sustain such a diagnosis, as in a case re ported by Shram (Medical News, Nov. 20, '97).
Fisn.—Cases of poisoning by salted salmon have been reported. Out of eleven cases witnessed by Arnstamoff, five died. The fish was not putrid, though peculiarly soft. The chief symp toms, which developed in ten to twenty hours after the ingestion of the fish, con sisted of general weakness, abdominal pains, dyspncea. mydriasis, diplopia, ver tigo, dryness in the mouth, dysphagia, aphonia, obstipation, anuria, and reduc tion of temperature. The pathologico anatomical examination showed nothing specific other than death from asphyxia. The microscopical and bacteriological examination of the organs demonstrated the presence of a large number of micro organisms which bore considerable re semblance to the typhoid bacillus.
The salted sturgeon has also proved fatal to many persons in Russia, the bard in central Europe, and the tetro don in China and Japan. Some of the varieties of the latter fish are extremely toxic, causing death in some cases in less than an hour. The poison may be either due to a venomous glandular se cretion or to bacteria or their toxins.
Cream and Cheese.— The toxic ef fects of milk have been considered in various articles, particularly under Ix FANTS, DIARRINEAL DISEASES OF (vol ume iii), and TYPHOID FEVER (volume vi), and the reader is referred to these.
Epidemic of milk poisoning. In one village 5 families consisting of 12 per sons were attacked; 2 children died.
In another village 17 persons living in 5 different houses showed symptoms of severe gastro-enteritis and collapse, the symptoms coming on always about three hours after taking milk which was sup plied by one milkman from one can.
The goats from which the milk was ob tained were entirely healthy. The calls had been washed, but they had a sour odor, and bacteriological examination of them showed a bacillus which had all the characteristics of bacillus euteritidis sporogenes. T. Zammit (Brit. Med.
Jour., May 12, 1900).
Ice-cream dealt out in the streets of London by itinerant vendors frequently causes death among the poorer classes. The cold of this food benumbs the sense of taste, and the combination of stale eggs and sour cream passes unnoticed down the gullet of the victims, almost invariably children. The quarters of the vendors are, as a rule, filthy, thus afford ing a prolific source of contamination. The symptoms do not vary from those already described: the manifestations of acute gastro-enteritis.
Analysis of forty-nine samples of American green cheese. A bacillus of the colon group was found in every sample. As to whether opium does harm if given in the vomiting and purging from tyrotoxicon poisoning, experiments on guinea-pigs with the bacillus obtained from cheese showed that a beef-tea cult ure killed only those animals which re ceived grain of morphine hypoder mically. Vaughan and McClymonds (Jacobi Festschrift; Phila. jour., May 26, 1900).
Study of about two hundred persons poisoned by cream-tarts. The symptoms were those of gastrointestinal irrita tion, and varied considerably in inten sity, resembling in some arsenical poison ing. All recovered. A bacteriological examination of the cream-mixture — which is usually composed of milk, eggs, sugar, flour, and pastry—showed the presence of streptococcus pyogenes aureus of unusual virulence. A series of experiments established the fact that, when the cream-mixture becomes sour and is kept in a very warm room. the pyogenic cocci, with which such mixtures are liable to become contami nated, develop very rapidly. Lashenkow (Vratch, Mar. 10, 1901).