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Botulism

Botulism is a rare and dangerous infection caused by a soil germ called Clostridium botulinum which can contaminate canned or bottled foodstuffs and survive in them. The germ is most commonly found in meat pastes and other processed animal products, and the great majority of cases have arisen from food prepared in the home and not properly sterilised.

The condition is one of the most dangerous infections known, and often causes death. Clostridium botulinum, is the most powerful known bacterial toxin (poison). The disease produced by this toxin is called botulism. Botulism is an acute descending paralysis on both sides of the body of the nerves that emerge directly from the brain (the cranial nerves) and the nerves that carry out automatic and unconscious control in the body (the autonomic nerves).

In recent years, very carefully-timed and measured doses of botulinum toxin have been usefully applied to a number of conditions, such as spasms, tennis elbow, recovery after stroke, teeth-grinding, etc.

The bacterium can survive short periods of heating at up to 100 C. In its most resistant spore form it can survive boiling for 2 hours. Spores are killed quickly by pressure boiling at 120 C. Unfortunately, Clostridium botulinum is what is known as an anaerobic bacterium; it lives, reproduces itself and produces its toxin most effectively under condition of very low oxygen levels – the conditions present in canned and bottled food preparations.

The toxin itself is much less resistant to heat and can be destroyed by boiling for only 1 minute. At 80 C it is destroyed in about 5 minutes.

Typically, botulism occurs in small groups of people, often in one household, all of whom have eaten a particular home-produced food product. It is rare in Britain: between 1922 and 1989 there were only 9 outbreaks, with a total of 46 cases.

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