Characterization of Clostridium perfringens (welchii) Isolated from Market Poultry

Strains of Clostridium perfringens capable of producing heat-resistant spores, characteristic of the food-poisoning types, were not recovered in a random survey of feces and livers of market poultry. Favorable growth response with a known food-poisoning strain indicated that the media and methods employed were adequate. Spores produced in vitro from this strain survived at 100 C for several hours. Animal feeding experiments with this strain showed that heat-resistant spores (surviving for 1 hr at 100 C) could be readily demonstrated 24 hr after oral instillation of vegetative cells in mouse feces, but not in chicken feces. One experiment suggests that this strain might adapt to the environment of the intestinal tract of chickens, but not all of the spores recovered were as heat resistant as those of the parent culture.     

Studies of Male Survivors of Myocardial Infarction: VI. The Electrocardiogram

Electrocardiograms of 101 men who survived myocardial infarction for at least three months and were free of hypertension, heart failure and other significant disease were analyzed. Within the range of 30 to 70 years, age had no apparent influence on the ECG. Six ECGs were borderline, 79 were abnormal and 16 had returned to normal. Of those with the pattern of infarction, 56 were transmural and 22 nontransmural. For all cases, posterior involvement was somewhat more common than anterior (46 to 32), but it was less common in non-transmural infarction. Ventricular premature beats, always unifocal and few in number, were the only abnormality in rhythm. Atrial fibrillation was conspicuously absent. There were four instances of complete left bundle-branch block. No evidence of left ventricular hypertrophy was seen. The clinical significance of these observations is briefly discussed.