In 1799 about a hundred Aleut hunters working for a Russian-American trading group died in Alaska’s Peril Strait only two hours after eating black mussels collected there. Those who survived did so because they threw up after desperately consuming gunpowder, tobacco and alcohol to purge toxin from their bodies. This was the first recorded incidence of paralytic shellfish poisoning on the west coast of North America.
[More]




More...