Coturnism is an illness featuring muscle tenderness and
rhabdomyolysis
Rhabdomyolysis (also called rhabdo) is a condition in which damaged skeletal muscle breaks down rapidly. Symptoms may include muscle pains, weakness, vomiting, and confusion. There may be tea-colored urine or an irregular heartbeat. Some of th ...
(muscle cell breakdown) after consuming
quail
Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy.
Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New Wor ...
(usually
common quail, ''Coturnix coturnix'',
from which the name derives) that have fed on
poisonous plant
Plants that produce toxins are referred to as poisonous plants. Plants that cause irritation on contact are also described as "poisonous".
The toxins in poisonous plants affect herbivores, and deter them from consuming the plants. Plants cannot ...
s.
Causes
From case histories it is known that the toxin is stable, as four-month-old pickled quail have been poisonous. Humans vary in their susceptibility; only one in four people who consumed quail soup containing the toxin fell ill.
The toxin is apparently fat-soluble as potatoes fried in quail fat have proven poisonous themselves.
Coniine
Coniine is a poisonous chemical compound, an alkaloid present in and isolable from poison hemlock ('' Conium maculatum''), where its presence has been a source of significant economic, medical, and historico-cultural interest; coniine is also prod ...
from hemlock consumed by quail has been suggested as the cause of coturnism,
though quail resist eating hemlock.
Hellebore
Commonly known as hellebores (), the Eurasian genus ''Helleborus'' consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae. ...
has also been suggested as the source of the toxin.
It has also been asserted that this evidence points to the seeds of the annual woundwort (''
Stachys annua
''Stachys annua'', called the annual yellow woundwort, is a widespread species of flowering plant in the hedgenettle genus ''Stachys
''Stachys'' is a genus of plants, one of the largest in the mint family Lamiaceae.Harley, R. M., et al. 2004. ...
'') being the causal agent.
It has been suggested that ''
Galeopsis ladanum
''Galeopsis ladanum'' is a species of flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('contain ...
'' seeds are not responsible.
Epidemiology
Migration routes and season may affect quail risk.
Quail are never poisonous outside the migration season nor are the vast majority poisonous while migrating.
European common quail migrate along three different flyways, each with different poisoning characteristics, at least in 20th-century records. The western flyway across Algeria to France is associated with poisonings only on the spring migration and not on the autumn return. The eastern flyway, which funnels down the Nile Valley, is the reverse. Poisonings were only reported in the autumn migration before the quail had crossed the Mediterranean. The central flyway across Italy had no associated poisonings.
Migrating quail used to be caught and eaten in prodigious numbers (150,000 quail exported from Capri in 1850) but modern farming and droughts in the
Sahel
The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...
have led to a vast reduction in the size of the migrations. Conservation efforts and the availability of farmed quail have also reduced the consumption of these wild birds.
History
The condition was certainly known by the 4th century BC to the ancient Greek (and subsequently Roman) naturalists, physicians, and theologians. The
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
(
Numbers 11:31-34) mentions an incident where the Israelites became ill after having consumed large amounts of quail in Sinai. Philo gives a more detailed version of the same Biblical story (The Special Laws: 4: 120–131). Early writers used quail as the standard example of an animal that could eat something poisonous to man without ill effects for themselves.
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
(''On Plants'' 820:6-7),
Philo
Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo's deplo ...
(''Geoponics'': 14: 24),
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
(''On the Nature of Things'': 4: 639–640),
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one of ...
(''De Temperamentis'': 3:4) and
Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus ( grc-gre, Σέξτος Ἐμπειρικός, ; ) was a Ancient Greece, Greek Pyrrhonism, Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and ...
(Outlines of Pyrrhonism: 1: 57) all make this point.
Central to these ancient accounts is the idea that quail became toxic to humans after consuming seeds from
hellebore
Commonly known as hellebores (), the Eurasian genus ''Helleborus'' consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae. ...
or
henbane
''Hyoscyamus niger'', commonly known as henbane, black henbane, or stinking nightshade, is a poisonous plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae. It is native to temperate Europe and Siberia, and naturalised in Great Britain and Ireland.
Histor ...
(''Hyoscyamus niger''). However Sextus Empiricus suggested that quail ate
hemlock (''Conium maculatum''), an idea revived in the 20th century. Confirmation that the ancients understood the problem comes from a 10th-century text, ''Geoponica'', based on ancient sources. This states, "Quails may graze hellebore putting those who afterwards eat them at risk of convulsions and vertigo....".
References
External links
{{Poisoning and toxicity
Toxic effect of noxious substances eaten as food
Quails
Bird problems with humans
Bird feeding
Plant toxins