Barbus Fluvialis

BARBUS FLUVIATILIS (usach), a fish of the carp family (Cyprinidae). It lives in rivers of the Dnieper and Volga basins, in rivers of Ukraine, as well as in the Caucasus and Turkestan. Its roe during the spawning season possesses poisonous properties, thanks to which, in Italy, for example, the sale of this fish is prohibited from March to May. Consumption of its roe causes cholera-like diseases («Barbencholera»). According to Gaudini, the poison of the usach acts on the nervous system first irritatively, and then paralytically. Fatal cases are not yet known. The causes of the poisonousness of the usach's roe have been little studied; in any case, processes of decomposition are not involved here. Mac Craddon injected the active principles of the usach's roe into the veins of animals and observed sensory and motor paralysis followed by death from respiratory arrest. The poison of the usach is close to the toxin of eel serum and belongs to the group of sapotoxins. From the stomach side, the poison does not act. It is possible that cases of «Barbencholera» occur with some predisposition on the part of the given subject, for example, in the form of a violation of the normal functioning of organs that normally neutralize the poison of the usach. Poisoning of this type, like that from the usach, is known in the literature under the term «ciguatera».