On poisons formed from food, and their relation to biliousness and diarrhoea / by T. Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On poisons formed from food, and their relation to biliousness and diarrhoea / by T. Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    commencing decomposition. Thus, meat which has been baked in a pie, without a hole in the crust by which to ventilate it, is more apt to disagree than the same meat boiled or roasted. Meat which has been kept until it has become high, or fish which has become tainted, is also very apt to produce symptoms of poisoning. Till within the last few years we have been very much in the dark regarding the causes of the different phenomena just men- tioned, viz : the tendency of milk and eggs to produce biliousness, or to be actually poisonous to certain persons, and of nitrogenous food such as meat, fish, or cheese to act as poisons when putrefaction has commenced, or of farinaceous food such as rye and maize to become poisonous when attacked by fungi. Even yet a great deal remains to be done before the subject is thoroughly cleared up, but so much has been done by recent re- searches that it may be useful to give their results shortly and to indicate the bearing of these results on the pathology of disease, and more especially on the pathology of biliousness and diarrhoea. The cardinal fact which results from all these researches is that albuminous, or perhaps to speak more correctly proteid, substances which are themselves foods may be split up so as to yield poisons. This decomposition is usually originated by various species of low organisms, and especially of bacilli, but it may be effected by the digestive ferments of the healthy body. The poisons formed by the decomposition of proteid bodies such as albumen, fibrine, and gelatine vary not only according to the particular body which is decomposed but to the particular organism or ferment which sets up decomposition, and according to the temperature at which it occurs and the length of time that it continues. Some of the products of the decomposition of proteid bodies are poisonous, others are innocuous. Amongst the i poisonous bodies we find various degrees of activity, some being but slightly poisonous, while others are most virulent. When ■ these poisonous products are separated from each other and * isolated, they may remain unaltered and retain their properties ji for a length of time, but, when mixed together, they are apt to I undergo further decomposition and become inert. In order to make it easier to remember and understand these j different changes, I may perhaps be allowed to use a very homely •