MICROBIAL FOOD POISONING. 413 



INFECTIONS OF FOOD-PRODUCING ANIMALS TRANSMISSIBLE TO MAN. 



Animals dead of infectious diseases or slaughtered in the last stages of 

 disease are not ordinarily used for food, nor is the milk of such animals 

 ordinarily considered wholesome. This custom is certainly an ancient 

 one, and is doubtless founded upon observation of unfavorable results 

 following the consumption of such food. Exact knowledge of the nature 

 of the diseases transmitted in this way is a more modern development, and 

 this more exact knowledge is now being applied to some extent through 

 food-inspection regulations to prevent the transmission of such diseases. 



Tuberculosis of cattle has been shown by Smith to be due to a germ 

 somewhat different from that causing the ordinary human tuberculosis, 

 and this discovery has called into question the necessity of avoiding 

 the use of food products from tuberculous animals. After a considerable 

 amount of controversy it may now be regarded as definitely established 

 that the bovine type of tubercle bacterium is capable of infecting man, and 

 that a very considerable proportion of cases of tuberculosis in children are 

 due to this type of organism, the infection probably arising through the 

 use of milk from tuberculous animals. Anthrax, glanders, actinomycosis, 

 and acute enteritis of animals are also transmissible to man. Food 

 products from animals afflicted with these diseases should not be used 

 until they have been passed upon by competent authority. Further in- 

 formation concerning them will be found in the sections dealing with these 

 particular diseases. 



In this connection it may be mentioned that some of the animal para- 

 sites, especially trichinae and various sorts of tapeworms, gain access to 

 the human body with the food. Thorough cooking usually serves to kill 

 these parasites, as well as the pathogenic bacteria, but ordinary cooking 

 should not be too implicitly relied upon to accomplish this result. 



HUMAN INFECTIONS TRANSMITTED IN FOOD. 



Food may serve as the passive carrier of the germs of any human in- 

 fectious disease capable of indirect transmission upon dead material. 

 In some foods, especially milk, these infectious agents may actually 

 multiply. Typhoid fever, diphtheria, and scarlet fever appear to be 

 rather frequently disseminated through the agency of food, and para- 

 typhoid fever seems to be commonly transmitted in this way. Especial 

 precautions are advisable to prevent persons afflicted with dangerously 

 communicable diseases and those who are chronic germ-carriers from 



