{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01954921803127875, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01218951241950322, 'mean_word_length': 5.031900138696256, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The rise and fall of botulism.

LIFE AND SECURITY in a world dominated by science and technology are possible only if history and the incontrovertible facts accumulated from experience are man's guides. An example of such admirable empiricism is the fine attention accorded to the diagnosis and public health aspects of botulism in the current issue of CALIFORNIA MEDICINE. This discussion is quite fitting in a journal published in this state, since in 1899 W. M. Lewis correctly identified the first case of botulism in California. His paper, describing "A Case of Ptomaine Poisoning" resulting from the consumption of a beef tamale was probably also the first such report in the entire United States. It appeared in the Southern California Practitioner. Well over a thousand years ago, Emperor Leo VI (889-911 A.D.) of Byzantium managed to acquire the title "The Wise" because by edict he forbade the eating of blood-sausages as harmful to human health. He was able to act arbitrarily in restraining trade sans consultation with scientific advisors. After nine centuries, beginning in 1735 and particularly in 1793, public and professional concern was roused in Wiirttemberg by classical outbreaks of blood-sausage poisoning. District Medical Officer C. A. J. Kerner deemed the disease reportable and collected details of some 230 cases over a period of 25 years. He attributed the disease to a toxic fatty acid developing within the sausage because of improper preservation by the smoking process used to "cure" the meat. The causative organism was isolated from inadequately cured ham in 1896. However, the prevailing belief that botulism was provoked mainly by ingesting sausages and only by foodstuffs containing animal protein was shaken by the occurrence of 11 fatal cases of typical botulism among 12 consumers of waxbean salad in Darmstadt in 1904. The episode attracted little attention until November 1913, when 12 young people attending a sorority party at Stanford University ate a salad containing string beans and mayonnaise. The string beans had been boiled for one hour on three successive days according to a method recommended in a U.S. Department of Agriculture pamphlet of the day. Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, who fortunately had observed some of the patients of the Darmstadt outbreak and was therefore prepared to recognize the malady, diagnosed the resultant disease as botulism. It was he who encouraged Ernest C. Dickson to conduct a thorough study of this poorly understood Clostridium poisoning. Dickson's studies revealed that sterilization of food by the cold-pack method usually employed by housewives in the Pacific States could not be accomplished if the raw vegetables had been contaminated with spores of C. botulinum, which are rather abundantly present in the dry surface soil at harvest season. Dickson was the first to observe that the spores of several suspensions could survive for two hours in boiling water. Hence he recommended that an educational campaign be instituted so that all who practiced the homecanning of fruits and vegetables might be informed of the danger of poisoning from the toxin of Bacillus botulinum. Little suspicion had yet accrued to commercial canning procedures. Then, with catastrophic rapidity, false security ended and grave responsibilities were thrust upon the canning industry in California. Between August and November 1919, in Canton (Ohio), Detroit (Michigan) and Java (Montana) ripe olives served at banquets caused a total of 28 intoxications with 17 deaths. Hence in December 1919 the Canners League of California, the California Olive Association and the National Canners Association proposed and liberally financed a detailed investigation by the G. W. Hooper Foundation of the University of California and the Department of Medicine, Stanford University. This project involved the dangers of botulism in commercially prepared food, how it originates, and how it could best be eliminated. A "botulism commission" was entrusted with the investigation. In the course of early studies, it became apparent that canned food liable to spoilage by botulinus organisms should be processed so that the sterility and sound appearance of the container at varying temperatures and altitudes, as well as proper handling, were ensured. Scientifically established sterilization stand-