Studies on the Morganella in Relation to Food Poisoning II Distribution of Morganella in nature, classification according to 0-antigen type and Phage typing

Abstract

To study the distribution in nature, Morgonella was isolated in 5.0% from the human stool, in 46.3% from dysentery patients, in 6.7% from rats, 1.3% from dogs and in 6.6% from the nasal cavity of hospital personnel. The strains isolated were classified using the antiserum against 0-antigen into 0-7 (35%), 0-6 (10%), 0-3 (9%) and 0-9 (7%).
Phage typing was performed with the strains isolated from food poisoning cases in order to clarify the epidemiological aspects. The 0-7 type strains were typable in 75% with the phage 6 originating from strains of the same type. Among them, strains isolated from men belonged to A type (1/2/3/4/5) and B type (1/2), those from rats to C type (1/2/4) and D type (3/4/5).
Furthermore, strains probably originating from food poisoning cases belonged mostly to A type and the strains belonging to the A type were mostly endowed with pathogenicity. Consequently, it was concluded that phage typing might be useful for the study of the epidemiological aspects of food poisoning.