<i>Bacillus cereus</i>Food Poisoning

Abstract

BACILLUS cereus is an aerobic spore-forming, motile, gram-positive rod1 that has been recognized as a cause of food-borne disease with increasing frequency in recent years. The organism was conclusively implicated by Hauge in Norway in the early 1950's.2 The illnesses were characterized by an incubation period averaging 10 to 12 hours, and abdominal pain, profuse watery diarrhea, tenesmus and nausea usually lasting not longer than 12 to 24 hours. Vomiting and fever were unusual. Outbreaks of similar illnesses attributed to B. cereus were subsequently reported throughout northern and eastern Europe.3 In 1974 Mortimer and McCann4 reported several outbreaks of a . . .