380 TYPHOID FEVER 



Organisms associated with Food Poisoninc; and 

 Kindeed Bacilli. 



Organisms of the paratyphoid group — sometimes apparently 

 the paratyphoid bacilli themselves — are the agents at work in 

 the great majority of the not infrequently occurring cases of 

 illness usually described as "food poisoning." 1 Such poisoning 

 is often referred to as "ptomaine poisoning," from the idea 

 originally prevailing that the symptoms were caused by alkaloidal 

 substances produced during putrefactive processes occuring in 

 meat. Certain cases of illness arising within an hour or two 

 of the taking of tainted meat may be due to the presence of 

 poisons, but in the great majority of single or multiple cases of 

 illness traceable to food the symptoms do not appear so rapidly, 

 and are associated with the multiplication in the intestine of 

 organisms of the type now under consideration, and it may be 

 also with an infection of the blood. In such cases, the meat at 

 fault may not, to taste or smell, present any unusual features, 

 but very often there can be isolated from it an organism 

 identical with organisms derived from the sick individuals. 

 Sometimes it has been proved that the animals from which the 

 meat was derived have been suffering from illnesses probably 

 due to the organisms subsequently found, but this has not 

 always been the case, healthy meat being here contaminated by 

 contact with infective matter. The foods giving rise to poison- 

 ing usually belong to the preserved food class, or consist of 

 sausages or similar products, but cases also arise from infected 

 milk. There is every reason to believe that the organisms in 

 question may not be killed in the ordinary processes of cooking, 

 in which the internal parts of the meat may not reach the 

 temperature of blood coagulation. The following are the chief 

 organisms concerned : — 



Bacillus Enteritidis (Gaertner). — In 1888, Gaertner, in 

 investigating a number of cases of gastro-enteritis resulting from 

 eating the flesh of a diseased cow, isolated, from the meat and 

 from the spleen of a man who died, a bacillus which is 

 now known to have been morphologically and culturally in- 

 distinguishable from the b. paratyphosus. Since- then, in a 

 great number of similar outbreaks, similar bacilli have been 

 found both hi the stools and in the organs. The cultural 

 characters are those of the group, and it can be isolated by the 

 technique applicable to the kindred bacilli. The organism can 



1 A special type of food poisoning is associated with the Bacillus 

 hnlii/inus, q.v. 



