LABORATORY ASPECTS OF STAPHYLOCOCCAL FOOD POISONING FROM COLBY CHEESE

Abstract

Outbreaks of food poisoning in Wisconsin in 1958 were traced to Colby-type cheese, as were the outbreaks of greater magnitude in Indiana and Michigan. Laboratory examinations were made on a total of eighty seven samples from cheese, milk from producer farms and from swabs from factory equipment. Seventy-eight cultures of staphylococci were isolated. Seventy-two of these were coagulase positive, and forty-five of the coagulase positive cultures had phage patterns.