CHAPTER V.* 

 MICROBIAL FOOD POISONING. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



Illness following the ingestion of food and more or less definitely 

 ascribable to the food has been long recognized. The Mosaic regulations 

 in regard to foods forbidden to the Jews are evidently designed in part 

 to avoid the occurrence of food poisoning. In recent times recognized 

 instances of food poisoning have been sufficiently frequent to make the 

 subject one of considerable practical importance, but there are undoubt- 

 edly many instances of actual food poisoning in which the causal relation 

 of the food remains unrecognized or even unsuspected. 



Food poisoning is usually suspected at once upon the occurrence of 

 sudden acute illness in a number of people at the same time, after they 

 have partaken in common of some particular food or foods. The causal 

 relation is especially evident when, as sometimes happens, a large number 

 of people are affected in the same way immediately after eating together 

 at a banquet, not having been associated with each other either before or 

 after the meal. When a smaller number of individuals is involved, the 

 connection with food may be more obscure. For this reason most of the 

 well authenticated instances of food poisoning are instances in which 

 many persons have been affected at the same time. Acute food poisonings 

 involving only a few persons probably occur very frequently in the home, 

 but they receive little public notice unless fatal, and are often dismissed as 

 mere "errors in diet," or as "indigestion." A careful study of these cases 

 is likely to be made only where there is suspicion of criminal poisoning, 

 or some other practical end to be served by the investigation. Chronic 

 forms of food poisoning are for obvious reasons very difficult to recognize 

 with certainty, and some of the forms of disease now regarded as due to 

 chronic food poisoning may eventually prove to be due to other causes. 

 On the other hand chronic food poisoning may really be more important 

 than is recognized at present. The subject is still in a very doubtful 

 state. 



* Prepared by W. J. Mac Neal. 



411 



