One chance discovery was made by doctors at the Ratnapura Hospital when a man with burn wounds on his hands turned up. He was a vendor who sold pieces of Jak or kos for curry. When he found he had large stocks, he had preserved them using a toilet cleaning fluid. The next morning, he would wash the pieces and sell them claiming they were from a fresh fruit. It did not take much for a person to realise that formaldehyde solution, used to preserve dead bodies, had been used to preserve the fish.

Source: Sunday Times March 26, 2018 04:52 UTC