水産食品の腐敗中毒に関する研究-I

Abstract

Allergy-like food poisoning occurred in Furuichi-machi, Aga-gun, Hiroshima Prefecture on February 17-18, 1953, in which all members of 3 families (11 persons) who had consumed “samma sakuraboshi” fell ill. Another outbreak of similar food poisoning was observed on July, 16, 1953, in the Safety Corps of Kumamoto, Kyushu District, in which 85 developed allergy-like symptoms among 250 persons who had taken canned seasoned mackerel in their lunch. In both outbreaks, incubation period was less than 2 hours and a half and characteristic symptoms observed were flush in the upper half of the body, dizziness and headache. In no case, vomiting, diahrrea or abdominal pain was recorded. Chemical analyses performed on the incriminated foodstuff of both outbreaks revealed no significant difference in pH value and the contents of volatile basic-N or trimethylamine-N from ordinary market samples. However, marked differences were observed in the amount of histamine and the rate of contraction of intestine (by Magnus' method) tested on the crude methanolic extracts were found to be much greater than the control. Moreover, the rate of contraction observed on the crude extracts was much severe as compared with that of histamine contained in the causative materials. These findings may suggest the presence of certain vagus-stimulant in the crude extract of incriminated materials.