Clostridium botulinum -- Revisited

摘要

"Clostridium botulinum shows us one extreme of the ways that bacteria can make most of animal hosts. Some organisms use subtle approaches, elegantly choreographing their interaction with us and our defences. C. botulinum takes the opposite approach. It lies in wait and, if it gets the opportunity, it hits its host with a microbial sledgehammer. It eats the remains and lays low until the next host comes along." Dr. Julian Parkhill (2007). This bacterium, Clostridium botulinum has had a chequered history. The first reported case of botulism (the name of the disease caused by its powerful neurotoxin) that resulted in the death of six people in a small town in Germany was in 1793, but the causative bacterium was not known then. The technology of 'canning' of foods for their preservation was first developed in 1795 by Nicholas Appert, the French chef, without any knowledge of this anaerobic pathogenic bacterium which was the target of the thermal process applied.