In the past fifty years, no recorded case of botulism has been attributed to surface ripened cheese (NIeyer and Eddie, 1950). When cheese spread was prepared from one type of surface ripened cheese, botulinum toxin was demonstrated in only one out of several million jars (Dauer, 1952). The fact that botulism was never observed with the original surface ripened cheese from which cheese spreads w...

The combined effect of water activity (aw) and pH on growth and toxin production by Clostridium botulinum type G strain 89 was investigated. The minimum aw at which growth and toxin formation occurred was 0.965, for media in which the pH was adjusted with either sodium chloride or sucrose. The minimum pH (at the optimum aw) for growth and toxin production of C. botulinum type G was found to be ...

The frequencies at which vegetative cells and spores of Clostridium botulinum strains 56A, 62A, 17409A, 25763A, 213B, B-aphis, and 169B formed colonies on agar media containing 0, 10(sup2), 10(sup3), and 10(sup4) IU of nisin per ml at 30(deg)C were determined. Strain 56A had the highest frequencies of nisin resistance, while strains 62A, 169B, and B-aphis had the lowest. For most strains, spore...

Spores of three strains each of type A and type B Clostridium botulinum were produced both by a biphasic (solid medium overlaid with an aqueous phase) and by a "conventional" (deep broth culture) procedure. Sporogenesis by the biphasic system was more rapid, convenient, and economical, and yielded as many or more heat-resistant (80 C, 10 min) spores per milliliter as by the conventional techniq...

The distribution of Clostridium botulinum serotypes A, B, E, and F in Finnish trout farms was examined. A total of 333 samples were tested with a neurotoxin-specific PCR assay. C. botulinum type E was found in 68% of the farm sediment samples, in 15% of the fish intestinal samples, and in 5% of the fish skin samples. No other serotypes were found. The spore counts determined by the most-probabl...

Growth behavior of Clostridium botulinum type E beluga was studied in Acipenser persicus granular caviar treated with 5% NaCl, 5%NaCl plus 0.3% boric acid and 0.4%borax and 5%NaCl plus 0.15% methyl paraben incubated at temperatures -2, 5 and 15 °C for 224 days. The initial number of inoculated bacterial spore was 5.1×104 cfu/g caviar in each treated sample. The number of bacterial spores in sam...

Honey can be used for the treatment of wounds, sores and skin bums, but it might be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum spores. In order to evaluate Costa Rican raw honey samples, the detection of neurotoxin gene sequences (corresponding to the bacterium) C. botulinum A, B, E and F was done with the polymerase chain reaction. A total of 64 raw honey samples, coming from different Costa Rica...