Despite an apparent recent expansion of the ciguatera on a global scale, this phenomenon would probably exist since the creation of coral ecosystems. 

The first case of ciguatera-like poisoning ever described dates back to the year 650, according to the observations of a Chinese doctor and philosopher, CHAN TSANG CHI, to whom we owe the first report of a mortal case related to the consumption of a toxic fish (yellowtail jackfish).

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In the16^th century, with the first large-scale explorations, Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, a columnist for the Spanish court, reported the testimonies of Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama, Cortez and Magellan concerning several misfortunes, associated with consumption of toxic fish.

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In 1675, during a stay in the Bahamas, the English physician and philosopher, John Locke, noticed that within the same fish species group, some specimens were toxic while others not. He also gave a very detailed description of ciguatera related syndrome and reported its chronic manifestations:

“…The fish, which are here, are many of them poisonous, bringing a great pain on their joints who eat them, and continue for some short time; and at last, with two or three days itching, the pain is rubbed off …Those of the same species, size, shape, colour, taste, are, one of them poison; the other not in the least hurtful …The distemper to men never proves mortal. Dogs and cats sometimes eat their last. Men, who have once had that disease, upon the eating of fish, though it be those which are wholesome, the poisonous ferment in their body is revived thereby, and their pain increased…”

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It is to Fernandez de Queiros that we owe the first case report of Ciguatera in the Pacific, around 1606, after a massive poisoning with a fish from Lutjanus bohar family caught in the waters of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu).

Mention is made of "siguatados" fish, derived from "Sigua", the name given in Cuba to a gastropod mollusc Trochidae, Cittarium pica, responsible for a neurodigestive disorder.

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In 1774, captain James Cook's crew was poisoned several times in the Vanuatu and New Caledonia by a Sparus pagrus.

In 1786, the Portuguese naturalist Antonio Parra, described an episode of fish poisoning in Havana, particularly evocative of the ciguatera syndrome as described today (short incubation time, combination of gastrointestinal, neurological symptoms, athralgia and myalgia, fatigue, dysgeusia, moving, breathing difficulties, dysesthesias in the extremities, etc.)

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Concerning French Polynesia, James Morrison, 2^nd boatswain on the “Bounty”, described the first cases of CP in 1792 in the Society Islands:

“….Among the fish there is a kind of conger eel of a brownish colour with a green border round the fins from head to tail. They are caught about the reefs and are of different sizes from one to six feet long; these fish are of a poisonous nature to some and if eaten gives the most excruciating pain while others who eat of it feel no effects nor do the natives know who will be affected by it, till they have eaten it. As they have a remedy for it they take no account of the matter and eat them at a venture. I partook of one of these fish without feeling the smallest effects from its poison, while another who eat of the same fish was almost raving mad, his body and limbs swelled to a very extraordinary degree and covered with red blotches and at the same time the hands and feet itching in such a manner as to be unsufferable and burning as if on fire, the eyes swelled and firey and to appearance fit to start from the sockets, this continued with short intermissions for eight days but in the course of a week more by the assistance of some of the priests who procured medicines he got quite well, but often found a great itching in the palms of the hands and hollow of the feet−These fish are called by the natives Puhi pirirauti and as they don’t know the good from the bad they are loth to throw them away and therefore eat them …”

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It was only in 1976 that the origin of the phenomenon was elucidated by the scientists Takeshi Yasumoto and Raymond Bagnis, who made the link between episodes of poisonings among the inhabitants of the Gambier archipelago (French Polynesia) and the presence of blooms of the toxin-producing micro-algae Gambierdiscus.

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Today, "ciguatera" refers to both the clinical symptoms and the complex underlying

the eco-toxicological phenomenon. 

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