Food Poisoning: An Introduction

Food poisoning is an acute gastroenteritis caused by the consumption of a food material or a drink which contains the pathogenic micro organism or their toxins or poisonous chemicals.Food poisoning is common in hostels,hotels,communal feedings, and festivel seasons.

A group of persons will be affected with same type of symptoms ,and they give a history of consumption of a common food before few hours.

Types of food poisoning...

1) Bacterial food poisoning:
Here the micro organisms called bacteria are responsible.The food material may contain the pathogenic bacteriae or their toxin and will be ingested along with the food.

2) Non bacterial food poisoning:
Due to the presence of toxic chemicals like fertilizers,insectisides,heavy metals and ect.

Since bacterial food poisoning is common it is discussed here.
Bacterial food poisoning:
All bacteria are not harmful.There are some pathogenic bacteria which secrete toxins and cause clinical manifestations.These organisms enter the human body through food articles or drinks.

How food poisoning occures:
1) Presence of bacteria in the water.
2) The raw materials for the food may contain toxins.
3) Premises where the food is prepared may contain micro organisms or toxins.
4) Food handlers may have some infectious diseases.
5) Some animals like dogs,rats may contaminate the food.
6) If prepared food is kept in the room temperature for a long time and heated again can make a chance for food poisoning.
7) Purposely some body mixing toxins in the food.

Some common bacterial food poisonings.
1) Salmonella food poisoning:
There are three different varieties of salmonella bacteria.(salmonella typhimurium,salmonella cholera suis,salmonella enteritidis) These bacteria are present in milk, milk products and eggs. Symptoms of this food poisoning include nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. Fever is also common.

2) Botulism:
This is the dangerous type of food poisoning caused by clostridium botulinum. The spores of these organisms are seen in the soil and enters the human body through pickles and canned fish ect.Compared to other food poisonings here vomiting and diarrhoea are rare Mainly the nervous system is affected.The symptoms starts with double vision,numbness with weakness.Later there will be paralysis with cardiac and respiratory failure ending in death.

3) Staphylococcal food poisoning:
It is caused by staphylo coccus aureus. These organisms usually cause skin troubles like boils and eruptions.It causes mastitis in cow.Through the milk and milk products it enders and causes gastroenteritis.There will be vomiting,abdominal cramps with diarrhoea.

4) Closteridium food poisoning:
This is caused by closteridium perfringens.They are present in stool,soil and water. They enter the body through,meat,meat dishes and egg ect.If food articles are cooked and kept in room temperature for a long time and heated again before eating can result this food poisoning.Symptoms include vomiting ,diarrhoea and abdominal cramps.

5) Bacillus cereus:
The spores of these organisms can survive cooking and causes enteritis. Diarrhoea and vomiting is common in this infection.

How to investigate food poisoning?
1) Examine each and every person affected.
2) Water sample should be tested.
3) Kitchen, store room and food samples should be examined.
4) The cook and food handlers should be questioned and examined.
5) Samples of vomitus and stool of all victims should be tested to identify the bacteria.

How to prevent food poisoning:-
1) Only purified water should be used.
2) Hygiene should be maintained by all persons keeping contact with food.
3) Workers should use masks, cap and gloves during cooking and serving.
4) Sick individuals should not come in contact with food materials.
5) Kitchen and premises should be neat and clean.
6) Vessels should be washed with soap and hot water.
7) Should not keep the prepared food for a long time in room temperature.
8) All food materials should be kept in closed containers.
9) Animals like dog, cat, rat ect should not come in contact with food materials.
10) Vegetables should be washed before cooking.
11) Meat should be fresh and should be purchased from recognised slaughter house.

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Back Pain: What Cause It

Low back pain is a usual symptom amoung the modern civilised people.It affects mainly the middle aged and young adults of both sexes.People who work on the chair with out exercise and those who carry heavy loads regularly are prone to get this complaint.

We can hardly find a person who has not suffered from back pain atleast once in life.The causes of low backpain ranges from simple reasons like muscular strain to cancer of spine and hence backache should not be ignored.The pain is felt in lumbar and sacral region and may radiate to nearby sites.

The following are some causes for backache:
1 Backache due to diseases in the back injuries :

1) Compression fracture of the vertebral column.
2) Rupture of intervertebral discs.
3) Injuries to ligaments and muscles of back.
4) Lumbosacral strain.
5) Intervertebral joint injuries.
6) Fracture of processes of vertebra.

b) Functional backache due to imbalance:-

1) During pregnancy.
2) Pot belly.
3) Diseases of the hip joint.
4) Curvature in the spine due to congenital defect.
5) Short leg in one side.

c) Backache due to inflammatory conditions:-

1) Infection of the bone due to bacteria.
2) Tuberculosis of the spine.
3) Arthritis.
4) Brucellosis.
5) Lumbago or fibrositis.
6) Inflamation of the muscles.
7) Anchylosing spondylitis.

d) Backache due to degenerative diseases in the back.

1) Osteoarthritis.
2) Osteoporosis in old people.
3) Degenaration of the intervertebral disc.

e) Tumour in the spine:--

1) Primory tumour of the bones in the spine.
2) Metastatic tumours from other sites like prostate,lungs,kidneys,intestine ect.

2. Backache due to gynaecological problems:
a) After childbirth.
b) After gynaecological operations.
c) Prolapse of the uterus.
d) Pelvic inflammatory diseases.
e) Cancerous lesions of the pelvic organs.
f) Endometriosis.

3. Backache due to problems in other parts of the body.
a) Renal stones.
b) Ureteric stone.
c) Cancer of prostate.
d) Pancreatitis.
e) Biliary stones.
f) Peptic ulcer.
g) Inflammations of pelvic organs.
h) Occlusion of aorta and illiac arteries.

Investigation of a case of backache
1) Complete blood count.
2) Routine urine examination.
3) Ultrasonography of the abdomen and pelvis.
4) X-ray of the lumbar and sacral region.
5) MRI of the spine.
6) CT scan of abdomen and pelvic region.
7) Examination of rectum,prostate,genito urinary organs.

Treatment of back ache
1) Removing the cause for backache.
2) Symptomatic treatement.
3) Back exercises.
4) Traction.
5) Yoga.
6) Surgery.
7) Homoeopathy.

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Alcohol and Body Fit

If alcohol does not contain tissue-building material, nor give heat to the body, it cannot possibly add to its strength. "Every kind of power an animal can generate," says Dr. G. Budd, F.R.S., "the mechanical power of the muscles, the chemical (or digestive) power of the stomach, the intellectual power of the brain accumulates through the nutrition of the organ on which it depends.

Dr. F.R. Lees, of Edinburgh, after discussing the question, and educing evidence, remarks: "From the very nature of things, it will now be seen how impossible it is that alcohol can be strengthening food of either kind. Since it cannot become a part of the body, it cannot consequently contribute to its cohesive, organic strength, or fixed power; and, since it comes out of the body just as it went in, it cannot, by its decomposition, generate heat force."

Sir Benjamin Brodie says: "Stimulants do not create nervous power; they merely enable you, as it were, to use up that which is left, and then they leave you more in need of rest than before."



Baron Liebig, so far back as 1843, in his "Animal Chemistry," pointed out the fallacy of alcohol generating power. He says: "The circulation will appear accelerated at the expense of the force available for voluntary motion, but without the production of a greater amount of mechanical force.

In his later "Letters," he again says: "Wine is quite superfluous to man, it is constantly followed by the expenditure of power" whereas, the real function of food is to give power. He adds: "These drinks promote the change of matter in the body, and are, consequently, attended by an inward loss of power, which ceases to be productive, because it is not employed in overcoming outward difficulties i.e., in working." In other words, this great chemist asserts that alcohol abstracts the power of the system from doing useful work in the field or workshop, in order to cleanse the house from the defilement of alcohol itself.

The late Dr. W. Brinton, Physician to St. Thomas', in his great work on Dietetics, says: "Careful observation leaves little doubt that a moderate dose of beer or wine would, in most cases, at once diminish the maximum weight which a healthy person could lift. Mental acuteness, accuracy of perception and delicacy of the senses are all so far opposed by alcohol, as that the maximum efforts of each are incompatible with the ingestion of any moderate quantity of fermented liquid. A single glass will often suffice to take the edge off both mind and body, and to reduce their capacity to something below their perfection of work."
Dr. F.R. Lees, F.S.A., writing on the subject of alcohol as a food, makes the following quotation from an essay on "Stimulating Drinks," published by Dr. H.R. Madden, as long ago as 1847: "Alcohol is not the natural stimulus to any of our organs, and hence, functions performed in consequence of its application, tend to debilitate the organ acted upon.

Alcohol is incapable of being assimilated or converted into any organic proximate principle, and hence, cannot be considered nutritious.

The strength experienced after the use of alcohol is not new strength added to the system, but is manifested by calling into exercise the nervous energy pre-existing.

The ultimate exhausting effects of alcohol, owing to its stimulant properties, produce an unnatural susceptibility to morbid action in all the organs, and this, with the plethora superinduced, becomes a fertile source of disease.

A person who habitually exerts himself to such an extent as to require the daily use of stimulants to ward off exhaustion, may be compared to a machine working under high pressure. He will become much more obnoxious to the causes of disease, and will certainly break down sooner than he would have done under more favorable circumstances.

The more frequently alcohol is had recourse to for the purpose of overcoming feelings of debility, the more it will be required, and by constant repetition a period is at length reached when it cannot be foregone, unless reaction is simultaneously brought about by a temporary total change of the habits of life.

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