On Sat, 18 Feb 2006, Alf Christophersen wrote, apropos the whale that
died in the Thames recently:

> I don't think I would eat the meat of that one. it's the same as
> eating meat from suddenly dead pigs and oxes/cows, dying of some
> diseases.

Lucas Bridges would agree. His view was that bulk and blubber kept a dead
whale too warm for too long, so that it putrified quickly and would be
toxic before you found it. Eating beached whales, he reports, was a
known cause of death among the natives of Tierra del Fuego. He is also
interesting on such culinary delights as guanaco brains, and the use of
seal gall in infant nutrition. If you want to know more, seek out his
"Uttermost Part of the Earth".

JW
Edinburgh