Food Poisoning and Food Infection 281 



of notable advances in preventive medicine and in therapeutic 

 discoveries. Lest the reader get the impression that tuberculosis 

 is no longer an important disease, consider the fact that more 

 than 30,000 persons die each year from this cause in the United 

 States alone. Nearly a half-million individuals are afflicted at 

 anv one time. During periods of war and in times of famine this 

 disease is one of the first to show an increase, and there are parts 

 of the world today where tuberculosis is still a leading cause of 

 death. 



UNDULANT FEVER 



The etiological agent of this disease has the generic name of 

 Brucella, in honor of Bruce who isolated the organism in 1882 and 

 studied its mode of transmission. Technically, this disease is called 

 BRUCELLOSIS, rather than the more popular designation of undulant 

 fever. 



Brucellosis is not transmitted from person to person except, 

 perhaps, through blood transfusions. It may be contracted by 

 drinking raw milk from infected animals, by eating infected meat 

 that has been improperly cooked, and by working with infected 

 animals or their carcasses. There is some evidence to support the 

 idea that these small gram negative rods can penetrate the un- 

 broken skin or enter the body through minute defects in the skin. 

 Veterinarians and slaughter house workers should wear rubber 

 gloves to protect themselves from this disease when handling 

 carcasses. It is not clear whether inhalation of the organisms is 

 a mode of transmission. 



There are three recognized species of Brucella: abortus, 

 melitensis, and suis. Brucella suis, from pigs, causes a more 

 severe attack in humans than Brucella abortus from cows or 

 Brucella melitensis from goats. 



The wavy nature of both the temperature curve of the affected 

 person and the course of the clinical symptoms gives the disease its 

 designation of undulant fever. It is the chronic, debilitating 

 nature of the malady which leaves the sufferers in such a depressed 

 state. Many infected individuals find themselves unable to hold 

 down a full-time position because of the clinical symptoms of the 



