Poisons in spoiled food: Moulds, rust, smut, bacteria, toxins. Action
of moulds on rabbits, on alimentary and nervous systems. Smuts, ergots
and their congeners. Tetanizing and paralyzing products. Duration of
symptoms.
Food is usually spoiled by the growth of moulds, rust, smut, bacteria
and the toxins which they produce.
Kaufman has experimented with moulds on rabbits. He found that
=aspergillus glaucus= (green mould) grown on bread produces a fatal
infection in the rabbit even in very minute doses (⅒ milligramme); that
it will attain this in a neutral or even slightly acid medium as well as
in an alkaline one; and that the spores retain this pathogenic activity
for six months at ordinary temperatures. The aspergillus glaucus,
penicillium glaucum, and mucor mucedo affect the intestinal organs only,
while ascophora oidium aurantiacum affect the nervous system as well.
The =smuts= (ustilago) and =ergots= (claviceps purpurea) vary
considerably in their potency according to the conditions of their
growth and the stage of their development, yet experiment has shown a
special action on the vaso-motor nerves leading to nervous disorders,
circulatory troubles, and trophic disease. In connection with =ustilago
maidis= (corn smut) there are usually found bacteria, such as =bacillus
maidis= and =bacillus mesentericus fuscus=, and the combined products of
these and the ustilago have been studied by Lombroso, Dupre and Erba.
These observers isolated a red oil with the tetanizing action of
strychnia, and oleo-resinous substances having bases which they named
maïsine and pellagrozeine, and which had a paralytic action on the nerve
centres. Pellizi and Tirelli cultivated the bacteria of damaged maize
and found that the sterilized cultures, introduced into rabbits
hypodermically or intravenously caused muscular jerking, exaggeration of
the reflexes, tetanic spasms and paralysis which lasted for fifteen days
after the injection. This is exactly in line with the causation of
contagious bacteridian diseases in which the ptomaines and toxins are,
as a rule, the immediate pathogenic factors.