Ciguatera and Other Marine Poisoning in the Gilbert Islands'

AMONG THE ANIMALS that live in the sea are many that may be poisonous to eat; these animals include fish, sharks , crabs, molluscs, and turtles. Of all marine animals the most important are fish, which are for so many people an essential source of food. There are a number of different ways in which teleost fish may be poisonous. Some fish are naturally poisonous; puffers for instance are always toxic. Some species of fish can be poisonous at certain seasons; in Fiji there is a species of sardine which may be deadly poisonous in the later months of the year. A third type of poisoning is found where some fish are poisonous to eat when they are caught on certain reefs or parts of a reef, and yet when caught on other parts of the same reef, or on nearby reefs, are perfectly safe to eat. This type of poisoning, known as ciguatera, is common throughout the tropical Pacific, usually on oceanic islands and isolated reefs. Ciguatera is not, as many people think, a recent development. Captain Cook, in the journal of his second voyage to the Pacific in 1772-1775, relat es how all of his officers who ate "two reddish fish, about the size of bream and not unlike them " were poisoned and the pigs, that were given the offal, died. These fish were taken in the New Hebrides, and Cook refers to an earlier record of poisonous fish in those waters when he remarks that these reddish fish must be the same kind as those mentioned by Quiros, and called by him "pargos." Pedro de Quiros was in the New Hebrides in 1606. However, prior to World War II there were few reports of ciguatera poisoning in the Pacific; cases of poisoning did occur, but -unless a stranger to the Pacific