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102
The Cheese appeared to be in excellent condition-it had no unhealthy
characteristics as regards colour, odour, or consistence.
Dr. Newman ate an ounce or two, and noticed nothing exceptional in the taste
but four or five hours afterwards suffered acutely from symptoms similar to those
of the other affected persons.
On the following day he informed the head of A B and C of what had occurred,
who, to demonstrate his belief that these illnesses had no relation to the Cheese in
question, ate about six ounces of it himself.
On the following day he suffered acutely from similar symptoms; and admitting
that the Cheese was the evident cause of his illness, at once handed over the
remainder of the consignment.
On the 28th October, Dr. Newman was informed of the illness of a man, his wife,
and two daughters who had eaten Dutch Cheese bought from a shopkeeper in
Finsbury, the symptoms being those of acute poisoning.
It was then found that the shopkeeper had bought this Cheese from the same
firm, A B and C, and the shopkeeper stated that he and his daughter having eaten
some of the same parcel had suffered from poisoning, and had returned the whole
consignment to A B and C.
There were in all 17 cases of sickness traceable to the same Cheese sold by
A B and C.
The symptoms of illness in all these 17 cases occurred in from two to eight hoars
after eating the Cheese in question. The symptoms were similar in all—epigastric
pain, rigors, vomiting, diarrhoea, prostration, and some fever.
The degree of sickness did not appear to depend upon the amount of Cheese
eaten. There was no death, and in general the symptoms appeared to have passed
off in the course of 48 hours.
Now a short incubation period suggests that the poison was "available" in the
Cheese, as a product of previous changes, possibly bacterial, set up in the Cheese.
A long incubation period between eating the food and the symptoms of poisoning
would suggest that the persons affected had consumed not the products of bacteria,
but the bacteria themselves. In the present case the incubation period was comparatively
short, and the acuteness of the symptoms did not appear to have a direct
relationship to the amount of Cheese eaten.
These two facts in relation to Cheese poisoning at once reminded Dr. Newman
of some outbreaks which occurred in Michigan in 1883 and 1884.
Three hundred persons in all were affected, and the illness, which was similar to
that described, was traced by Professor V. C. Yaughan to a poisonous ptomaine
present in the Cheese, and to which he gave the name tyro-toxicon.