Horrific Tales of Potatoes That Caused Mass Sickness and Even Death
A greened potato indicates the presence of a toxin that can cause gastrointestinal distress, induce coma or even death within 24 hours of consumption
October 21, 2013
It was the second day of autumn term at a small boys’ school in South London in 1979. Without warning, 78 schoolboys and a handful of monitors simultaneously fell ill. Symptoms included vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and, in severe cases, depression of the central nervous system. Several patients were comatose with episodes of convulsive twitching and violent fits of fever. In many patients, there were signs of peripheral circulatory collapse. Within five days of the initial outbreak, all patients recovered in full, though some hallucinated for several days, Mary McMillan and J.C. Thompson report in the Quarterly Journal of Medicine. But what could cause such a sudden and mysterious illness?
Turns out, a bag of potatoes left in storage from the previous summer term.
After careful analysis of the sequence of events, the onset of symptoms was pinpointed to about four to 14 hours after the boys had eaten boiled potatoes that had a high concentration of the toxin, solanine, a glycoalkaloid that was first isolated in 1820 in the berries of a European black nightshade. Nightshade is the term used to describe over 2,800 species of plants in the scientific family, Solanaceae. Eggplants, tomatoes, and some berries are common members of the nightshade family—many of them contain highly toxic alkaloids.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/horrific-tales-of-potatoes-that-caused-mass-sickness-and-even-death-3162870/#sVPGS0bcqizmHfp5.99
