ABOUT POISONS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 2 November 1922, Page 8

ABOUT POISONS.

WRONG IDEAS REGARDING FOOD

Whenever a, tragedy occurs associated with poisoning by food, such as that which at Loch Maree resulted in seven deaths, says a bacteriologist in the Daily Mail, there is always talk of "ptomaine" poisoning. As a matter of fact, no cases of Stomaine poisoning have anything to o with ptomaines. Ptomaines are chemical substances resulting from the putrefaction of meat, fish, and other protein substances. Theijr bad reputation appears to be due to an old tale to the effect that the Borgias prepared their most efficient poisons by allowing dead pigs to rot in the sun and collecting the liquid which dropped from them. Actually, ptomaines are for the most part relatively harmless and seldom, if ever., cause death. If they did there would be a high mortality among those wno like their gam© "high." . True food poisoning is always due to the activities of bacteria, but it falls into two classes, according to the nature of the bacteria concerned, In the first place, it may be due to bac teria actually living in the food at the time of its' consumption. Secondly, as apparently in ithe Loch Maree outbieak, it may result from poisonstoxins—left by bacteria which once lived in the food but are possibly! since dead. j The first class of food poisoning is the commoner in this country. It results from the eating of food which has become contaminated by certain bacteria belonging to the same family as those which cause enteric fever. The presence 6f these bacteria may be due to disease of the food animal before it was slaughtered; more usually, however, they gain access to the food in course of its preparation. The heat used in cooking is generally sufficient to kill them, which explains why the second mode of contamination is .the more common. In a recent epidemic the instrument of infection was a soiled knife used in cutting ham for sandwiches. In this class of food poisoning the i mieroße^ actually, lives and multiplies in the patient, giving rise to an acute infection, characterised by fever, vomit-1 ing, and diarrhoea. Some epidemics aye fatal; others may be mild, according to the type of microbe concerned. It is the second class of food poisoning, that due to a toxin formed by organisms, themselves possibly Jong since dead, that the recent outbreak at Loch Maree apparently belongs. The microbe concerned in this class of cases is the bacillus; botulisms, so called from its having first been discovered in sausage (German), which is named botulus in Latin. This bacterium lives in the absence of oxygen, and consequently can thrive; in, air-tight tins or inside sausage skins. It elaborates a most powerful j toxjn, which acts upon the nerve centres in the lower parts of the brain y causing, among other symptoms, paralysis of the muscles which move the eye and eyelids and of those concerned in speech and swallowing. The. toxin I is one of the most powerful known,! minute doses causing death. The disease resulting from its: action is known as botulism; it is rare in Eng- . land, but fairly common in Germany and America. I ' Ordinary food, poisoning and botu . lism, then, are as aiffereiit as m typhoid fever and poisoning by arsenic. The former is an infection, the latter a '. simple poisoning. A tin of food in fected b"y the organisms of the former , may be rendered harmless by cooking, provided the temperature used is # hSgh ■enough, as this will kill the organisms A tin of foo4 infected by the bacillus ' botulinus .remains <|eadly even after the organisms "have, been destroyed, In any case, however, ptomaines ate since the tpxiin remains. never concerned in "ptomaine poison-