15O MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY. 



showed that there was good reason for attributing an epi- 

 demic of typhoid fever among students at Middletown, 

 Connecticut, to raw oysters. After having been collected 

 from the oyster-beds, these oysters were placed in a small 

 stream to fatten, where they were exposed to contamination 

 from a sewer. Into this sewer the discharges of a case of 

 typhoid fever were found to have been running at the time 

 when the oysters were fattening. An epidemic at Atlantic 

 City, New Jersey, in 1902, was traced to nearly similar 

 causes and conditions. 1 



The ordinary processes for curing and salting meat can- 

 not be relied upon to destroy pathogenic bacteria. 



Cases of poisoning by eating oysters, fish, meat in the 

 form of sausage or canned meat, and other articles of food 

 are not rare. These cases belong to the same class as 

 those poisoned by milk and cheese already mentioned. They 

 are due to products of bacterial decomposition. Such affec- 

 tions are quite commonly called " ptomaine poisoning/' al- 

 though the poisons are not ptomaines in most cases. Prob- 

 ably a number of bacteria exist which are capable of affecting 

 changes in meat and other foods either before or after 

 ingestion. Among these are an anaerobic bacillus described 

 by Van Ermengem (B. botulinus), bacillus enteridis (Gaert- 

 ner) and members of the groups of which B. coli communis 

 and B. proteus are types. 2 



1 Philadelphia Medical Journal, November I, 1902. 



2 See Vaughan and Novy, " The Cellular Toxins," 1902. Ohlraacher, 

 " Food-Intoxication from Oatmeal," Journal of Medical Research, Vol. 

 VII., p. 420. Galeotti and Zardo, Centralblatt f. Bakteriologic, Vol. 

 XX.vL, 1902, Orig. p. 593. 



