Food Poisoning Probably Caused by Orange Colored Staphylococcus from Udders of Apparently Healthy Cows.

Abstract

While studying the cause of a malt flavor in raw milk, one of the authors, (R. J. R.) became ill with a severe gastroenteritis. He was prostrate for 2 days with severe symptoms of food poisoning, which included cramping in abdominal regions, weakness of legs, violent diarrhoea, and absolute loss of appetite.The suspected food was raw milk which had been inoculated with a pure culture of an orange colored staphylococcus, isolated from a sample of raw milk delivered to a commercial milk plant. The authors did not suspect that this organism might be harmful, because of its common occurrence in raw milk delivered to the milk plant.' Small portions of the inoculated milk were consumed each day for 5 days by (K. J. K.) before his illness. This orange colored staphylococcus has been found to attack the casein of milk with the formation of a malt-like flavor and odor. In order to check the symptoms reported above, 4 kittens were fed milk cultures of this organism. In less than one week, 2 of the kittens had bloody stools, one having diarrhoea and the other having considerable mucous in the stool. The 2 remaining kittens had constant diarrhoeal stools until the cultured milk was omitted from the diet.Our data seem to be in accord with many which have been recently reported. Barber' found a toxin-producing staphylococcus to be responsible for many attacks of gastroenteritis. This organism occurred in the udder of an apparently normal cow. Dack3 traced an epidemic of food poisoning to a similar organism. The incriminated food was a Christmas cake in this case. Jordon" has recently published data showing intestinal disturbances to be due to a yellow, toxin-producing staphylococcus.In order to establish the identity of the orange colored staphylococcus in question, it was compared with pure cultures of Staphylococcus amweus. Since the pure cultures of Staphylococcus aweus were found to produce a malt flavor in milk, and since they were ~~~ ~

A REVIEW OF MICROCOCCUS ENTEROTOXIN FOOD POISONING

“…I n many of these cases the possibility that the enterotoxigenic Micrococcus gained entrance to the milk from some other source than the udder of the cow is apparent. Ramsey and Tracy (1931) and Tanner and Ramsey (1932) reported the isolation of such an organism from raw milk delivered to a commercial milk plant. Crabtree and Litterer (1934) and Dolman, Wilson, and Cockcroft (1936) likewise isolated such organisms from raw milk.…”

“…The failures reported by some investigators were due mostly to the method of administration, Feeding portions of the suspected or incriminated food, as Owen (1907) and Corpening and Foxhall (1935) did, proved invariably unsuccessful. Milk cultures of the incriminated organism, as shown by Barber (1914), Ramsey and Tracy (1931), Tanner and Ramsey (1932), Meyer (1934), and Stone (1935), or of the sterile boiled filtrate, according to Dolman (1936), when administered orally were successful to some extent in producing some symptoms. Typical gastrointestinal symptoms WM.…”

The Pathogenic Staphylococci

“…Dolnan (60) cites several such outbreaks involving at least 500 persons in the five years up to 1934. Since then several more outbreaks have been reported, involving about 2000 more individuals (17, 38,39,43,45,46,47,53,61,116,131,132,135,186,187,196,208,215,227,232,241,251). The geographic distribution of these outbreaks is of interest, for practically all to date have been in the United States and Canada.…”

“…A variety of foods has been incriminated in staphylococcal food poisoning. Chief among these are bakery goods (17,38,39,42,45,53,61,131,132,186,196,208,227,260), and milk and ice cream (5,43,187,215,232,233,241). In addition, single outbreaks have been traced to such foods as cheese (131), meat and gravy (46,135,252), salads (116), oysters (175), and fish cakes (145).…”