- larly in hot climates, are always poisonous,—that some, though generally
salubrious and nutritive, such as the oyster and still more the muscle, will at times acquire properties which render them hurtful to all who eat them,—and that others, such as the shell-fish now mentioned, and even the richer sorts of verbetrated fishes, though actually eaten with perfect safety by mankind in general, are nevertheless poisonous, either at all times or only occasionally to particular individuals. But hitherto the chemist and the physiologist have in vain attempted to discover the cause of their deleterious operation.
A good account of the poisonous fishes of the tropics has been given by Dr. Chisholm[1] and by Dr. Thomas;[2] and some farther observations on the same subject have been published by Dr. Fergusson.[3] These essays may be consulted with advantage. On the effects of poisonous muscles several interesting notices and essays have been written, among which may be particularized one by Dr. Burrows[4] of London, another by Dr. Combe of Leith,[5] and the observations of Professor Orfila, including some cases from the Gazette de Santé, and from the private practice of Dr. Edwards.[6] Of all the sources of information now mentioned, that which appears to me the most comprehensive and precise, is the essay of Dr. Combe, who has collected many facts previously known, added others equal in number and importance to all the rest put together, and weighed with impartiality the various inferences which have been or may be drawn from them. The succeeding remarks will be confined to a succinct statement of what appears well established.
In this work, however, the poisonous fishes of the West Indies and other tropical countries may be laid aside, because we are still too little acquainted with the phenomena of their action to be entitled to investigate its cause, and they are objects of much less interest to the British medical jurist than the fish-poison of his own coast.
There is little doubt that some of the inhabitants of the sea on the coast of Britain are always poisonous. Thus it is well known that some of the molluscous species irritate and inflame the skin wherever they touch it,—a fact which is familiar to every experienced swimmer. The fishermen of the English coast are also aware that a small fish known by the name of Weever (Trachinus vipera, Cuv.) possesses the power of stinging with its dorsal fin so violently as to produce immediate numbness of the arm or leg, succeeded rapidly by considerable swelling and redness; and indeed an instance of this accident, which happened at Portobello on the Firth of Forth, has been mentioned to me by Mr. Stark, author of the Elements of Natural History, who witnessed the effects of the poison. But our knowledge of the poisons of that class is too imperfect to require more particular notice.
