Food Poisoning

In this, the third edition of his well-known work, Dr. Dack has made a thorough revision and incorporated the newer knowledge of a subject which affects each of us at one time or another. The first two chapters on chemical poisoning and poisonings due to substances found in plants, fish, and shellfish contain useful tables of specific agents, incubation periods, symptoms, and foods involved. Botulism, staphylococcus food poisoning, and upsets caused by the multitudinous members of the Salmonella group of bacteria (really, infections rather than poisonings, as the author points out) are, of course, the best understood types and are discussed in satisfying detail. The space devoted to disturbances caused by Streptococcus fecalis, Clostridium perfringens, and certain other bacteria is necessarily limited because our knowledge of the role of these organisms is restricted. With this group, as with the Salmonellas, the process is primarily one of infection. In the concluding chapter, Dr. Dack lists those infections (the dysenteries, infectious hepatitis, trichinosis, those of viral etiology) which should not be confused with "food poisoning." He stresses the fact that symptomatology, epidemiology, and pathology are all essential in establishing a correct diagnosis and analysis of any outbreak. To this reviewer, however, the logic of including outbreaks due to the Salmonellas, for example, and barring those due to some other agents, is debatable: the classification seems to have its basis in custom alone. Dr. Dack has brought together in concise fashion information on a problem which, as a result of our changing methods of food processing, is becoming increasingly important, as anyone who reads the weekly Communicable Disease Summary is aware. PHILIP B. COWLES