New varieties of Catenabacterium helminthoides and Fusobacterium vescum isolated from mud-snails.

In the suburbs of Seki city in Gifu Prefecture, there occurred . an outbreak of food poisoning of which the causative agent was not yet known. However, the highly incriminated food was a dish of mud-snails (Viviparus histricus Gould). The dish which was served on the table was exhausted and could not be examined, but another samples of mud-snails were gathered from the same rice-field and were examined bacteriologically. As aerobes Fsclaerichia coli and Paracolobactrum having antigenic relationships to Salmonella group were found. As anaerobes Gram-positive long rods and Gram-negative fine rods were isolated. These two strains of anaerobes were studied in detail and were sent together with the descriptive charts to Dr. A. R. Prevot (Institut Pasteur in Paris) and Dr. H. Beerens (Institut Pasteur in Lille). After examining the strains they admitted the author's opinion that they were new varieties of Catenabacterium helminthaides and Fusobacterium vescum respectively. Up to the present time there has been no report of isolation of these anaerobes in Japan.