meat taken from a dead calf, which was found by one of them on the sea shore, and of which no history could be procured. For three hours no ill effect followed. But they were then all seized with pain in the stomach, efforts to vomit, purging, and lividity of the face, succeeded by a soporose state like the stupor caused by opium, except that when roused the patient had a peculiar wild expression. One person died comatose in the course of six hours. The rest, being freely purged and made to vomit, eventually got well; but for some days they required the most powerful stimulants to counteract the exhaustion and collapse which followed the sopor. The meat, they said, looked well enough at the time it was used. Yet the remains of the fish which formed the noxious meal had a black colour and nauseous smell; and the uncooked flesh had a white, glistening appearance, and was so far decayed that its odour excited vomiting and fainting.[1] It is much to be regretted that this accident was not properly inquired into. The only conjecture which the facts will warrant as to the cause of the poisonous quality of the meat is, that in consequence of having lain long in the water, the flesh had begun to undergo the adipocirous putrefaction; and that in the course of the changes thus induced the meat became impregnated with some poisonous principle, like that of the German sausages, or cheese.
An accident of a similar nature, for the particulars of which I am indebted to Dr. Swanwick of Macclesfield, occurred at Stockport in the summer of 1830. A family of five persons took for dinner broth made of beef, which, owing to its black colour, the master of the family had previously said to his wife he thought bad and unfit for use. In the course of some hours two boys were attacked with sickness and vomiting, but appear to have got soon well, probably owing to the early discharge of the poison. Next morning a washerwoman who had dined with the family was seized with violent pain in the bowels, diarrhœa, racking pains and weakness in the limbs; and she did not recover for ten days. On the evening of the second day the master of the house was similarly affected, and was ill for a fortnight. And a day later his wife was also seized with a similar disorder, preceded by soreness of the throat and tongue and difficulty of swallowing, and ending fatally in fourteen days. The last person was previously in delicate health, and subject to disorder in the stomach and bowels. The investigation made by the police authorities into the circumstances of this accident was extremely imperfect: but there seems little reason to doubt that unsound meat was the cause.
I am not sure under what head to arrange the following observations, communicated to me by Dr. M'Divitt of Canterbury, and of which he has since published a detailed account.[2] But they may be mentioned, perhaps not inappropriately, in the present place; and at all events they deserve careful attention, as referring to a description of cases which may be mistaken for other kinds of poisoning.
It is well known that pork in all forms, but especially when fresh,
