An outbreak of allergy-like food poisoning occurred in Ogawa-machi, Hiki-gun, Saitama Prefecture in June 18, 1955, in which, 50 developed allergy-like symptoms among 111 persons who had consumed “sashimi” (sliced raw fish flesh) or
Parathunnus mebachi. Chemical analyses performed on the incriminated fish flesh of the outbreak revealed no signi-ficant differences in pH value, the contents of volatile basic-N or trimethylamine-N from ordinary market sample. However, the unusual amount of histamine and additional vagus-stimulant named “saurine” were observed in the responsible food.
Attempts were made on the isolation of responsible micro-organisms for the formation of such toxic substance as histamine or “saurine” and consequently, 11 out of 78 strains isolated from the causative materials of “sashimi” were confirmed to form both histamine and vagus-sti-mulant in the extract medium of mackerel flesh. Studies on the physiological, cultural and biological properties of these 11 histmine formers revealed that these organisms might belong to
Proteus group, and further, 5 of them were identified as
P. vulgaris, 3 as
P. mirabilis and the remaining 3, as
P. morganii. A slight amount of histamine was produced by those strains belonging to
P. vulgaris or
P. mirabilis, whereas,
P. morganii could produce not only a large amount of histamine but “saurine”. Moreover, the result of the inoculation of one of these histamine forming strains of
P. morganii into the minced raw flesh of
Parathunnus mebachi disclosed that a remarkable amount of both histamine and “saurine” (as expressd in equivalent histamine by means of Magnus' method) were formed without any appreciable increase in ammonia, any change in appearence or putred odor. On the contrary, control flesh, not inoculated with
P. r ?? rganii developed an ordinary mode of putrefaction and produced a considerable amount of ammonia and putrid odor, whereas, a slight amount of histamine was formed.
Of course, all the strains of
P. morganii can not be considered to form these toxic subs-tances, however, it should be noticeable that the existence of such a characteristic strain was confirmed among them. These facts may suggest that there can be a mode of putrefaction, in which the special micro-organisms may accumulate a large amount of such toxic substances as histamine, “saurine” and others in their proliferation, without giving any sign of deterioration to food. And these facts also be strongly suggesting that the proliferation of such species of bacteria should play an important role in the prevailing outbreaks of allergy-like food poisoning.
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