Alpha Type Streptococci in Food Poisoning

Streptococci and Food Poisoning

“…(iv) Cary, Dack & Davison (1938) reported an outbreak of food poisoning in a group of about 250 men aged 17-25 ; this developed some hours after a noon meal, and the epidemiological evidence pointed to veal croquettes as the likely vehicle. Enquiry forms filled in by 208 men showed that 117 had been taken ill. Of these, only 98 reported having eaten the croquettes, but this is attributed by the authors to a delay of nearly a week before circulation of the questionnaire.…”

“…A third volunteer drank 50 ml of a sterile filtrate with no ill effects. Cary, Dack & Davison (1938) found that filtrates of veal broth cultures of a food poisoning strain were harmless, but that living cultures caused abdominal distress in 5 out of 7 volunteers.…”

Food-Poisoning Potential of the Enterococci

“…One of the preserved cultures was later identified as an enterococcus (Sherman, Smiley, and Niven, 1943). More recently, enterococci isolated from a variety of food products have been implicated as the cause of food poisoning (Cary, Dack, and Meyers, 1931;Cary, Dack, and Davison, 1938;Buchbinder, Osler, and Steffen, 1948;Dack, 1956;Fujiwara, Sekiya, and Bamba, 1956).…”

“…Incubation periods as short as 2 hr (Buchbinder et al, 1948) and as long as 32 to 60 hr (Dack et al, 1949) have been reported. Cary et al (1938) reported the production of food-poisoning symptoms with broth cultures of suspected enterococci but not with bacteria-free filtrates. Dolman (1943) also reported symptoms produced with broth cultures but not with meat pies in which the organisms had grown or with bacteria-free filtrates.…”

A Method for Producing Increased Carbon Dioxide Tension in Individual Culture Tubes and Flasks

“…It has been found (Woolpert and Dack, 1933) also that staphylococcus enterotoxin, which is apparently distinct from the other exotoxins of staphylococci, can be produced more consistently in the presence of 20 to 30 per cent C02 than in the unaltered atmosphere. More recently enterotoxins have been obtained from streptococci, Proteus, Salmonella aertrycke and Escherichia coli by this method (Jordan and Burrows, 1935;Cary, Dack and Davison, 1938).…”