TOXIC POISONING FROM MILK PRODUCTS. 137 



TOXIC POISONING FROM MILK PRODUCTS. 



There have been quite a number of instances reported in 

 the last twenty years of toxic poisoning which comes directly 

 from the consumption of milk. A larger number of cases of 

 ice cream poisoning have been reported, and quite a number 

 of instances of poisoning resulting from the use of cheese. 

 In all of these cases the phenomena are somewhat similar. 

 The symptoms of the poisoning are violent and develop with 

 great rapidity. They are usually characterized by intense 

 intestinal disturbances, accompanied by diarrhea and vomit- 

 ing, and develop within a very short time after the food has 

 been consumed. There is no doubt that they are due to the 

 presence of toxic poisons in the food material. Indeed, 

 Vaughan has isolated from such poisonous ice cream and 

 cheese certain toxic materials which are capable of pro- 

 ducing, when inoculated into animals, symptoms quite 

 similar to those developed in man (167). More than one 

 such toxic substance has been thus found. The poison that 

 has been isolated from cheese has been called tyrotoxicon, 

 and it is one of the highly complex organic compounds, 

 though its exact chemical nature is not yet known. 



It is certainly not the same substance that produces the 

 poisoning in all cases, but all forms of such poisoning from 

 milk products, are, beyond question, due to toxic products. 

 The effect they have upon the consumer, though violent, is 

 fleeting. They sometimes result in death in a comparatively 

 short time, but, if they do not result in death from the first 

 violent attack, the patient gradually throws off the poisons 

 by excretion and recovers. The phenomena, then, are not 

 due to the development of microorganisms in the body, 

 but simply to a direct poisoning from toxic products in the 

 food. 



To what these toxic products are due we have only a 

 partial answer. That they are the result of the growth of 



