8 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 373 



Service (12, 13) indicates that heated milk is as satisfactory as raw milk 

 as a food for children. The report points out the fact that after the first 

 few weeks of life, or the first few months at most, children receive sup- 

 plementary feeding by which any vitamins lacking in the milk can be 

 supplied. It is not the intent of this bulletin to discourage the use of 

 raw milk if its sanitary quality can be guaranteed; but if there is any 

 doubt, the consumer should prefer the safety of properly pasteurized 

 milk, which is more generally obtainable than is dependably safe raw milk. 



FOOD POISONING 



Every one is familiar with those acute attacks of intestinal illness 

 commonly called "ptomaine poisoning." The attacks are characterized 

 by sudden onset, severe intestinal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. 

 Not all of these symptoms are necessarily present in every case. One 

 may not have vomiting or fever, but the pain and diarrhea generally 

 occur. The ailment is usually of short duration, not more than five or 

 six days at the most. Recovery is usually rapid, and the ailment seldom 

 results in death. 



Authorities know now that these attacks are caused by bacteria in 

 certain foods, but for many years it was thought that they were caused by 

 poisons, called ptomaines, that had been produced in foods as the result 

 of the bacterial decomposition of proteins. 



Ptomaine Poisoning 



The old concept of ptomaine poisoning was described in 1912 in a 

 journal article by an able scientist, LeFevre (14). Even then the ail- 

 ment was called food poisoning, but ptomaines were thought to be the 

 direct cause of the poisoning, with bacteria only indirectly involved. 

 LeFevre stated that ptomaines are purely chemical bodies formed in 

 protein substances during the process of putrefaction. Some of them 

 are poisons, but they are different from bacterial toxins which are formed 

 within bacterial cells. At the time LeFevre's article was written, about 

 sixty ptomaines had been isolated and studied, and about one-half of 

 them were thought to be poisonous. They represented a wide range of 

 chemical compounds, not too closely related in many instances. The 

 article then proceeded with a discussion of the nature of the ptomaines, 

 and gave a classification of them. 



LeFevre's description of the way in which ptomaines are formed agrees 

 essentially with present-day opinion, and it is possible that bacterial 

 decomposition of foods may produce ptomaines that could be poisonous 

 if they were to be eaten in sufficient quantity. However, long before 

 such a quantity of ptomaines could be produced in any food, it would be 

 so badly d-ecomposed that no civilized person would eat it under normal 

 circumstances. 



The present scientific concept of the subject of ptomaine poisoning 

 is expressed by the late Professor Jordan of the Department of Bacteri- 

 ology at Chicago University and by Professor Tanner of the Department 

 of Bacteriology at Illinois University. Jordan (15) states: "It is pos- 

 sible that cases of 'ptomaine poisoning' in man . . . sometimes occur, 

 but there is no doubt that such cases, if they occur at all, are very rare." 

 He adds: "It still remains to be proved that the ptomaines play any 

 really important part ... in food poisoning, or in so-called gastro- 



