* animal. The operation of the poison was not immediate. "This poison," according to Pliny, "hath no set and prefinite time wherein it killeth any body;" but the victim lived as many days as the hare had lived, subsequent to its removal from the sea; and being believed besides to betray itself by the person poisoned exhaling the scent of the snail and some other peculiar symptoms, it was not often resorted to.† What proportion of truth there is in this account, it is not easy to decide. I am not prepared to reject the whole, as some modern authors have done, who believe that the singular conformation of the Aplysia, for so the animal is now designated by naturalists, and the power it possesses of discharging at pleasure large quantities of a fluid of the richest purple colour, have given rise to the whole tale. Cuvier tells us that the species observed by him at Marseilles exhaled merely a slight acid smell, and the fishermen there knew nothing of any noxious property it had. Having kept them a long time in confinement, and repeatedly handled them, I can confirm Montagu's statement, that our British species are equally harmless and inoffensive; but the question has reference not to these, but to the larger species, which inhabit the Indian ocean or the shores of southern Europe; and, to pass over the authority of Rondeletius, who, however, details a curious case, which would seem to prove that its virtue to effect abortion is far from being imaginary,§ the account which Bohadtch gives of the latter verifies to a certain extent the ancient history. He tells us, that the Lernæa|| (Fig. 2) "Cette ridicule accusation était basée sur ce fait, qu'on l'avait vu observer des lièvres marins, gros mollusques qui jouaient un grand rôle dans les operations magiques. Dans sa défense, Apulée répondit qu'en effet il avait observé des lièvres marins, mais seulement dans le but de satisfaire une curiosité qui n'offrait rien de condamnable."-Cuvier Hist. des Sc. Nat. i. 287. + Holland's Plinie, i. 264, ii. 427. Beckman's Hist. of Inventions, i. 82. Bohadtch de Anim. Marin. 49. Cuvier Mem. ix. 2, 3. The symptoms have been enumerated in the following verses, quoted by Aldrovandus, Opera, v. 87: "Post bibitum hoc virus viridis stagnantia fellis Caligant, liquidæ abeunt in corpore carnes : Nausea adest, tumet alta cutis, talique calescunt : Subque cavis oculis, roseo fucata rubore Apparet facies, sistensque urina moratur, Quæ nunc purpureo, nunc sanguineo esse colore Cernitur; et quemcunque videt contemnere piscem Mem. ix. 11. Aldrovand. Oper. v. 86. The Aplysia leporina of Delle Chiaie, Anim. s. Vert. Nap. i. p. 71.— C abounds in the bay of Naples, where the fishermen excused themselves for not bringing it to him, saying it was a filthy thing which stank abominably. When removed from the sea, and placed in a vessel, there exuded a large quantity of a limpid, somewhat mucilaginous fluid, exhaling a sweetish, sickening, peculiar smell; but besides this, and distinct from its purple secretion, the Aplysia excretes also a milky liquor, formed in an internal conglomerate gland, which seems to be analogous to the kidney of vertebrate animals. As often as he took the Aplysia from the vase of sea-water and placed it on a plate with the view of more narrowly examining its structure, the room was filled with a most fœtid nauseous odour, compelling his wife and brother to leave the room, lest sickness and vomiting should follow. He himself could scarcely endure it, and during the examination had repeatedly to go out and breathe a purer air. His hands and cheeks swelled after handling the creature for any length of time, and as often as it ejaculated its milky secretion; but he is uncertain whether the swelling of the face proceeded from the halitus merely, or from having accidentally touched it with the hand besmeared with the liquid; probably the latter was the real cause, for when he purposely applied some of it to the chin, some hairs fell from the part. The Aplysia then appears to possess the depilatory properties ascribed to it by Pliny; but it is obvious that were it indeed poisonous, the odious smell amply secures the safety of those exposed to its action. There are some less doubtful poisonous Mollusca. Delle Chiaie mentions it as a fact, that the fresh-water mussel and oyster become poisonous in summer, on which account their sale is prohibited during that season in all southern Europe; and we, in the north, are as effectually restrained from their use, by a popular tradition of their unwholesomeness in the This author says of the Aplysia in general: "ad nauseam usque fœtidissimæ," p. 72. An Aplysia which Mr. Darwin met with at St. Jago, exudes an acid secretion which "causes a sharp, stinging sensation, similar to that produced by the Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war."-Voy. of the Beagle, iii. p. 6. De Anim. Mar. 2, 7, 35, 50, 51.-" A sailor happened to take a Laplysia in the Mediterranean it gave him such instantaneous and excruciating pain as to cause an inflammation, and the poor man lost his arm; and so sensible are the fishermen of the poisonous quality of the mucus which oozes from its body, that they will not on any account touch it.”— Barbut Gen. Verm. viii. I have not traced Barbut's story to its source, but he is an author of little credit. The hurtful properties of the Aplysia have been also attributed to the Tethys. The Sea-hare of Osbeck, Voy. to China, ii. 114, is a different and harmless animal: the Scyllæa pelagica. months that have no R in their names. * It seems certain also that oysters, in general wholesome and easy of digestion, do occasionally become noxious when in season, as was partially observed in Holland during the year 1821.† Lentilius mentions that when he was at the Hague in 1713, a certain ambassador gave a luxurious supper to some of both sexes of his own rank, and that no delicacy might be wanting oysters of a green colour were procured from England. All who eat of these were immediately seized with severe colics, and were with difficulty cured. It was afterwards ascertained, says Lentilius, that the merchant, whom he anathematizes with his whole race, had pawned upon the ambassador some common oysters, tinted with copper, for the true greens.‡ In the West Indies, some suspicion is attached to those oysters which adhere to the mangrove trees; and in China, as I am informed by my friend Dr. W. Baird, the sailors in our India merchantmen are prohibited from purchasing a large clustered kind of oyster, taken from a bed near the mouth of the river at Whampoa, and brought for sale by the natives, it having been found that they often were the cause of unpleasant symptoms. § On the shores of the West Indies, there is found a large pale Chiton, said to be poisonous; while again in the East, the fish of Mitra episcopalis enjoys, probably unjustly, the same reputation, but you must be guarded against the assertion of those who say that this Mollusk wounds them who would touch it with a kind of pointed trunk;|| this can only be the proboscis, an instrument unfit for the purpose, but of extraordinary length, the animal being able, according to Mr. Stutchbury, to project it to the distance of five inches. But certainly of all Mollusca the "Now the fishes called oysters, Are in their operative moistures ; For now the month hath yet an R in 't, -From "Poor Robin," an almanack for 1685, quoted in Gentlem. Mag. v. xv. n. s. p. 607. + Edin. Med. Surg. Journ. xviii. 320. See also Christison on Poisons, p. 469, for some additional examples. "Dr. Clarke believes that even wholesome oysters have a tendency to act deleteriously on women immediately after delivery. He asserts that he has repeatedly found them to induce apoplexy or convulsions; that the symptoms generally came on the day after the oysters were taken; and that two cases of the kind proved fatal.” Ephemerid. Acad. Leopold. cent. 8, 450. 8 Osbeck mentions these oysters, "which the Chinese called Hao." "It was plainly visible," he adds, "that they came out of a clayey bottom," but he says nothing of any injurious quality they had.-Voyage to China, ii. 30. Turt Gmel. iv. 377. Gray Spic. Zool. 4. See a figure of it in Swainson's "Malacology," p. 128, no. 13; and in Mrs. Gray's Fig. Mollusc. Anim. pl. 28, fig. 6. Mussel (Mytilus edulis) is that which proves most frequently poisonous. I have known them to produce an itchy eruption and swelling over the whole body, attended with great anxiety and considerable fever. "On some parts of the coast of Yorkshire, where mussels are abundant, a belief is prevalent among the people that they are poisonous, and they are consequently never eaten."* Many cases are on record in which their use has proved fatal. A case, says Dr. Bateman, is mentioned by Ammans and Valentinus, in which a man died so suddenly after eating mussels, that suspicion of having administered poison fell upon his wife. Some of Captain Vancouver's men having breakfasted on roasted mussels, were soon after seized with a numbness about their faces and extremities; their whole bodies were shortly affected in the same manner, attended with sickness and giddiness, and one died. Of the mussels of Van Dieman's Land, Captain Freycinet reports that they often enclose a small crab, or little greyish pearls; such mussels ought to be avoided, since they are liable to occasion severe colics. † In the month of June, 1827, a great number of the poor in Leith were poisoned by eating these shell-fish, which they procured from the docks. "The town," says Dr. Combe, "was in a ferment, and the magistrates, with great propriety, issued a warning against the use of the mussels. Many deaths were reported, and hundreds of individuals were stated to be suffering under it. Luckily matters were not so deplorable; but we ascertained that, in addition to the man mentioned before, the companion of our patient, an elderly woman, had died. In all, about thirty cases occurred, with great uniformity of symptoms, but varying very much in severity: but none, so far as I know, have left any permanent bad effects."+ To what cause these deleterious effects are to be ascribed is uncertain; for mussels, you are aware, may commonly be eaten with impunity. The common people attribute all the symptoms to the person having unwarily swallowed the beard or byssus of the fish, but there is no doubt that the opinion is erroneous. Some of the learned ascribe them to the presence of parasitical worms, to the spawn of star-fish, or to microscopical medusæ; others, to the mussel having fed on some poisonous articles, more particularly on the ores of copper; others believe the mussels to be in a diseased condition, or in a state of putrefaction; and others refer all to the peculiar * Bateman on Cut. Diseases, 89. Voy. aux Terres Aust. 43. Edin. Med. Surg. Journ. xxix. 88. See also the Med. Quart. Review, iii. 179; and Christison on Poisons, 462-8. idiosyncrasies of the sufferers. In many cases this latter explanation will suffice, but sometimes, as in the Leith cases, it is obviously insufficient. Drs. Combe and Christison have reviewed with candour the other supposed causes, and finding reason to refuse assent to any which has been alleged, they agree that the effects seem to be best explained by attributing them to a peculiar poison generated in the fish under unknown circumstances, although the latter eminent physician and chemist admits that in the deleterious mussels he could not detect any principle which did not equally exist in the wholesome ones. It is quite certain that putridity can have no existence as a cause, for the fish are eaten fresh or alive; and the most delicate chemical tests give no indications of the presence of copper, which, moreover, produces symptoms of a different character. Delle Chiaie has demonstrated that in many instances the poison is generated with those changes in the system that result from the pregnancy of the Mollusks. The Arca noæ, Murex brandaris, and M. trunculus, are great favourites of the Neapolitans, who eat them with perfect safety in all seasons except in summer or the beginning of autumn, when they are dangerous. This author has recorded two examples of their fatal effects at this season; and another of a party of twelve persons who were poisoned with the Arca noæ, although the only one of the party who died was the wife of the host. On dissection, he found that all these Mollusca, at this season of fecundity, were greatly altered, more especially the gland that secretes the purple fluid; and the ovaries, the branchiæ, and indeed the whole body were filled with a clammy liquid. I am inclined to believe, with Dr. Thomas, † that in other cases the poisonous principle proceeds from some particular food which, not fatal to the Mollusks, yet generates a diseased condition of the body deadly to other creatures. The Leith mussels were living in a dock, where we may presume they were nurtured and fattened amid putrescent matters; and Dr. Coldstream, than whom no one is better qualified to decide the point, gave it as his opinion that the liver was larger, darker, and more brittle than in the wholesome fish, and satisfied Dr. Christison that there was a difference of the kind. The oysters by which, not long ago, some people were poisoned at Havre, were procured from an artificial bed, which had been established near the exit of the drain of a public necessary: and Dr. Chisholm mentions a fact which bears on the question, and seems to prove that copper communicates some perni * Anim. s. Vert. Nap. ii. + Pract. of Physic, 679. |