Sausage-poison.

Sausage-poison. It is well known that sausages made or kept under certain unknown conditions are occasionally highly poisonous; and in Germany, where sausages form a staple article of diet, fatal cases of sausage-poisoning are by no means rare. The symptoms are slow in appearing, three or four days sometimes elapsing before they manifest themselves. They resemble those of poisoning by Atropia or Belladonna (q.v.), and are believed to be due to the presence of animal alkaloids or Ptoomaines (q.v.) developed by putrefaction. Cases observed in Britain differ from those commonly occurring in Germany in this respect, that in England the sausages are usually comparatively fresh, while the sausages which have proved poisonous in Germany had always been made a long time.