Abstract
Since old days, many cases of poisoning due to eating liver of “Ishinagi” fish have been reported in this country, which can be featured by early onset of severe headache followed by peeling of skin. In addition, the liver of “Ishinagi” has been well recognized for its surprisingly high vitamin A potency.
1) Vitamin A potency and varieties of fatty acid were examined for several lot of liver oil extracted from three different livers of “Ishinagi” (Fig. 1 and Tables 1 and 2).
2) In the feeding tests for the first two samples of liver, there was found no toxic effect for rat and even for human subject by those such as cooked liver, oil fraction, and residual portion from oil, so far the amount shown in Table 3.
3) In a test conducted for No. III liver, which contained 261×103 I. U. of vitamin A in 1g of the tissue, toxic effect except by hypervitaminosis could be observed for neither oil nor extraction residue, by feeding those two separately for rat and the residue for man.
4) The four male volunteers who had eaten each 8g of cooked liver of No. III, equivalent to 1, 500×103 I. U. of vitamin A, suffered from headache and a slight peeling of skin which lasted for about one month. (Fig. 3 to 5).
According to the present examination, liver of young “Ishinagi” (I and II) contained vitamin A less in the quantity and would be scarcely toxic. However, as to the adult liver of No. III fish, it indicated high amount of vitamin A, and furthermore, it seemed to contain any other poison, which supposedly developed peeling of skin as an after- effect of the intoxication.
