4 8 



Scientific Proceedings (78). 



The importance of these observations has been emphasized 

 by the fact that within a few months there have been three out- 

 breaks of botulism with eight deaths in which the cause of the 

 poisoning was the ingestion of home-canned beans, corn and apri- 

 cots, respectively. In all cases a number of chickens became 

 paralyzed and died after eating the remnants of the food which 

 had been discarded. The virulence of the toxin was very great in 

 all cases, that in the beans and corn being so great that the 

 patients died after merely tasting the contents of jars in which 

 the odor was unusual. 



Records of necropsy and of histologic examination of the tissues 

 of the chickens are not available in the corn and apricot cases, but 

 examination of the tissues from the patient and from the chickens 

 which died after eating the beans revealed the characteristic 

 thromboses which were first observed by Wilbur and Ophiils 2 

 and which were reproduced experimentally by the author. 1 



From the contents of the crops and gizzards of the chickens 

 which died after eating the beans and corn, an organism was 

 recovered which is morphologically and culturally identical with 

 the Bacillus Botulinus, and which produces a toxin by which the 

 typical symptoms and the characteristic thrombosis may be repro- 

 duced in animals. The virulence of the toxin in both strains is 

 extremely high, approximately 0.0002 c.c. of a filtered beef infusion 

 culture of the bean strain being sufficient to kill a small guinea 

 pig within eighteen hours, and 0.001 c.c. of a similar culture of the 

 corn strain being sufficient to kill a medium sized rabbit within 

 twenty hours. 



1 Dickson, E. C, Botulism, an experimental study. A preliminary report. 

 Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc., 1915, LXV, 492. 



'Wilbur, R. L. axd Ophuls, W. Botulism. A report of food poisoning appar- 

 ently due to eating canned string beans, with a report of a fatal case. Archiv. Int. 

 Med., 1914, XIV, 589. 



