During the period of 1965-69, a total of 90 outbreaks of staphylococcal food poisoning was reported in Tokyo. Of them, 55 cases were confirmed bacteriologically in our laboratory, as those cases showed complete agreement on the coagulase types of the isolates both from incriminated foods and from patients. Incriminated foods of 36 (66%) outbreaks were found to be typical Japanese style processed foods which had been mainly composed of rice, i. e., 17 (31%) outbreaks by Nigirimeshi (rice ball), 8 (15%) by Sushi (rice ball with raw fish), 6 (11%) by Japanese cake and 5 (9%) by delivered luncheon, while the remainder scattered to 8 (15%) by cake, 4 (7%) by baked egg, 3 (5%) by salad, 2 (3.5%) by bread and 2 (3.5%) by other miscellaneous food, respectively. As for the coagulase types of the causal isolates, 14 outbreaks were proved to be caused by the type II organisms, 16 outbreaks by type III, 11 by type VI, and 14 by type VII respectively. Whereas none of the organism belonged to the coagulase types I, IV or V was detected throughout the investigation.
