ABOUT PTOMAINES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 93, 21 April 1908, Page 3

ABOUT PTOMAINES.

A WORD TO PICNICKERS

Presently (says the Post) the picnickers will be trooping out of the city in hundreds, and they will be taking with, them the tinned tongue, the potted ham and chicken, the canned salmon,' and other armoured delicacies. Will anybody draw a ptomaine in the lottery? Conversing with a representative of the Post, an officer of the Health Department quoted a remedy which ne finds effective. He has eliminated tinned meat and fish from his diet, but confesses that he tastes tinned sheeps' tongues occasionally. What risk does he run? He believes that the chance of a severe pain is not 1 in 5000. That is all tie picnicker had to calculate. He takes a risk, a very slight one; is the meat worth it?

It is in canned meat that the ptomaine chiefly lurks. It has also frequently been present in tinned salmon, but has scarcely been ' noticeable in other kinds of potted fish. Only by ordinary evidence, such as that furnished by the eye and nose, can the possibility of ptomaine presence be detected. v It is not considered to be a microbe tliat does the mischier. The evil is an animal alkaloid, the result of the processes of putrefaction, and it acts as a poison on the human system. No amount of cooking will take the dangerous element out of 'ptomained" food. When once a noxious morsel has entered '* the stomach it makes its presence felt. There are no long preliminary symptoms. There is a violent internal pain, and a disposition to vomit. "Cardiac tonics"—stimulants— are advisable. The sufferer naturally tends to become depressed, and his heart may be down so much that a medical man will inject strychnine to keep up wue spirits. While the doctor is being summoned brandy may be given to the patient. No curative effects are claimed for this liquor at the District Health Office, but it helps to keep the smitten person from becoming utterly miserable.

It is either "kill or cure" with the ptomaine. It gives a man a rough handling for a time, but does not leave an aftermath of weakness and liability to other ills. As the green apple is to the child, so is the ptomaine to anybody. The child may have a very bad night after a feast of green apples, but if the- youngster survives it is little the worse for the incident. Xhe visible effects of consumption of unripe fruity are much the same as those of ptomaine poisoning.