'HE NEED for a simple and specific technique for demonstrating and assaying staphylococcal enterotoxin has been recognized for a long time. Research efforts ranging from biological tests with small and relatively cheap animals (1, 2) to extensive chemical and serologic studies of enterotoxin (3) have not attained this important objective.The many contradictory reports found in the literature (4) on staphylococcal enterotoxin are evidence of the inadequacy of the crude, difficult, and impractical tests that are available for its detection. Evidence incriminating suspected foods in outbreaks of staphylococcal food poisoning is largely circumstantial and is limited to the use of epidemiological findings and the demonstration of the presence in the suspected food of appreciable numbers of enterotoxin-producing staphylococci. The very ubiquity of the staphylococcus and, conversely, the possibility of the presence of the heatresistant enterotoxin in foods which no longer contain viable staphylococci, detract considerably from the value of such procedures.Furthermore, the demonstration of enterotoxigenicity of the isolated staphylococcus involves considerable effort. The isolated organism must be cultured on special media in order to produce the enterotoxin, and the presence of the latter is determined by the feeding of monkeys or the parenteral introduction of the culture filtrates into monkeys or cats.

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