Relation of Disease-Bacteria to Milk. 101 



fact that certain peptonizing species which are frequently 

 found in milk possess a toxic property for lower animals. 

 Ptomaine poisoning. Many cases of poisoning from food 

 products are also reported with adults. These are due to 

 the formation of various toxic products, generally pto- 

 maines, that are produced as a result of infection of foods 

 by different bacteria. One of these substances, tyrotoxicon, 

 was isolated by Vaughan J from cheese and various other 

 products of milk, and found to possess the propert}' of pro- 

 ducing ^symptoms of poisoning similar to those that are 

 noted in such cases. He attributes the production of this 

 toxic effect to the decomposition of the elements in the 

 milk induced by putrefactive forms of bacteria that develop 

 where milk is improperly kept. 2 Often outbreaks of this 

 character 3 assume the proportions of an epidemic, where a 

 large number of persons use the tainted food. 



>Zeit. f. physiol. Chemie, 10:146; 9 Intern. Hyg. Cong. (London), 1891, p. 118. 

 a Vaughan and Perkins, Arch. f. Hyg., 27:308. 



3 Newton and Wallace (Phila. Med. News, 1887, 50:570) report three outbreaks at 

 Long Branch, N. J., two of which occurred in summer hotels. 



