650 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



These tiny organisms cannot live in heavy sugar solution? a fact made 

 use of in preserving. Vinegar, spices, salt and wood smoke have a like 

 effect. Sunshine, too, is destructive to them. Food kept at the freezing 

 point is an excellent preventive, and is as important for many cooked 

 foods, as for raw. 



Many bacteria produce poisons in their growth just as higher plants 

 do. Bacteria are plants. 



Saprophytea are bacteria that grow on dead animal matter; they pro- 

 duce ptomaines. 



Parasites are bacteria that grow on live animals, they produce toxines, 

 which cause disease as typhoid, diphtheria, tuberculosis, etc. 



Ptomaines are lifeless, and non-productive, and are secretions of bac- 

 teria that cause decomposition. When ptomaines manifest themselves in 

 animal food it is usually in canned meats, fish or shell fish or in sea 

 food that has been too long in cold storage without proper care. 



Canned foods are safe enough, so far as ptomaines go, if they are put 

 up wholesomely. Indeed, there is more reason to believe that more pois- 

 oning of this kind results from food that has been carelessly handled in 

 cold storage. 



All tainted meat or fish, whenever its odor is detected, should be 

 thrown out as probably dangerous. 



Ptomaine poisoning from ice cream is familiar to us through frequent 

 paragraphs in the newspapers. The trouble in this case is traced to 

 a lack of cleanliness, either in the cow sheds, the dairy, the handling of 

 the milk, or in the making or packing of the cream. At any stage of 

 the process the use of containers that have not been cleaned by much 

 scalding and washing may lead to a score of violent cases of ptomaine 

 poisoning. Cheese is one of the sources of this same peril. There is no 

 harm in fresh, pure cheese, but if kept too long the same piece may 

 become a scourge. Some prefer cheese that has "aged" to a tainted condi- 

 tion, but it is to be remembered that all putrefaction in animal foods to 

 which cheese belongs — tends to the formation of ptomaines. Mussels, 

 oysters, lobsters, and all shell fish are commonly suspected as carriers of 

 ptomaine poisons. 



These substances may form in such fish as have begun to putrefy, but 

 more commonly derive the ptomaines from feeding where sewage is 

 emptied. 



When there is any suspicion that a case of ptomaine poisoning exists 

 no time should be lost in waiting to see if the sufferer "gets better". Send 

 for a physician at once. Ptomaine poisoning from meat develops generally 

 in five or six hours after eating. The attack comes on with nausea, vom- 

 iting, colic and diarrhoe. There are thirst, headache, often vertigo and 

 stiffening, with a feeling of utter collapse. If ice cream causes poisoning, 

 the symptoms are likely to appear an hour or two after eating, there is 

 a violent irritation all along the intestinal tract, together with the same 

 symptoms as in meat poisoning. In conclusion let me emphasize the 

 fact that ptomaines are a product of the bacteria that grow on dead 

 animal matter, it cannot be destroyed or rendered ineffective by boiling. 



