Abstract
In October, 1959, a serious case of intoxication caused by eating the flesh of a puffer of the genus Lagocephalus taken off Vietnam occurred in Kokura City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan. The present writer has been asked by Dr. Iwao TANI (Laboratory of Criminal Sciences, Fukuoka Prefectural Police Department) to identify the fish, and several frozen specimens and skeletons of the fish from the same water have been received for study through the courtesy of Dr. TANI, Mr. Takeo KAWAKAMI (Research Laboratory, Taiyo Gyogyo Co., Shimonoseki) and Dr. Toshiharu KAWABATA (Dept. of Food Control, National Institute of Health, Tokyo). The last-named biochemist and Mr. Koichi KAN-NA (Tokai Regional Fisheries Research Laboratory) have kindly revealed the presence of an unusually strong toxicity in the viscera, flesh and skin of the fish specimens dissected by the present writer. This fish resembles a Japanese form of Lagocephalus called “saba-fugu”, which is well known as non-toxic in Japan, and some fishermen shipped the former fish caught during the 2nd and 3rd of September, 1959, to Kyushu believing that it was, like the Japanese “saba-fugu”, not poisonous to eat. Some 340kg of the flesh (with vertebral columns and caudal fins) were sold by auction on the 16th of October, 1959, in Kokura City, and four persons died on the next day by eating the flesh in spite of the fishermen's effort to buy back the flesh from the purchasers; some of them working at a big restaurant ate tentatively a small quantity of the flesh in the evening of the 16th of October as they usually did, and in the next morning informed the retailer who sold the flesh of the puffer to the restaurant that it might be poisonous.
In the previous papers (ABE, 1942-1954), the present writer, with some doubt, disposed of Tetrodon spadiceus RICHARDSON as a synonym of Lagocephalus lunaris (BLOCH & SCHNEIDER). Examination of the frozen and skeletonized specimens of the poisonous puffer from off Vietnam mentioned above has led him to believe that it differs, morphologically as well, from the non-toxic congener from the Japanese waters which has hitherto been recorded either as Lagocephalus lunaris or as L. spadiceus.Although he is still doubtful of the identity of the latter fish with spadiceus described by RICHARDSON, it is thought advisable to give a new Japanese name for the poisonous puffer from Vietnam mentioned above and to discriminate between it and Lagocephalus lunais spadiceus from the Japanese waters. The poisonous puffer from Vietnam is believed to be Lagocephalus lunaris lunaris (BLOCH & SCHNEIDER). In the following pages the writer wishes to give a new Japanese name for it along with additional records of Lagocephalus lunaris lunaris and L. lunaris spadiceus, and finally present a key to these puffers. He takes pleasure in expressing here his thanks to the scientists who have co-operated with him.
