Egg Spoilage as Affected by the Route of Exposure

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONTHE filtration experiments of Walden et al. (1956), Kraft et al. (1958) and Garibaldi and Stokes (1958) suggested that the egg shell membranes might be much more resistant to the passage of bacteria than was the shell alone. Under conditions which were optimum for bacterial penetration, Lifshitz et al. (1964) showed that the inner shell membrane was more impervious to bacteria than either the shell or the outer shell membrane. Elliott (1954) demonstrated that bacteria inoculated onto the inner shell membrane at the air cell were not recoverable from egg white until four to eight days. Florian and Trussell (1957) reported that some species of bacteria (secondary invaders) were able to grow in the egg magma but lacked the capacity to traverse the inner shell membrane. Other bacteria (primary invaders) could perform both functions. Various theories for the mechanism of bacterial egg spoilage have been based primarily on egg …