The Molly-Grables

The U.S. warmed up nicely last week and the heavy food-poisoning season was on. In Chicago 100 sailors and uncounted civilians were laid low, poisoned by infected rice pudding on a chain restaurant's plate lunch. In Orange, N.J. 14 pupils and teachers were knocked out by something they ate at Miss Beard's School for Girls.

Though many laymen have the philosophy of Anita Loos (in the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) that "everybody in Paris has ptomaine at least once, so let's get it over with," doctors take it more seriously./- Food poisoning usually lasts only 12 to 48 hours, but it also kills 0.5% to 1.5% of the patients. Doctors worry about church and lodge suppers, where mistakes in food handling let large quantities of harmful bacteria or their toxins get into the food. The New York Health News recently named the commonest food-handling mistakes:

P:Failure to keep perishable food in the icebox (which should not be allowed to go above 50DEG F.). Puddings, gravies, custards which might harbor Salmonella (TIME, Jan. 31) should never be allowed to stay warm. P:Preparing food while ill or with sores on hands or face. Bacteria from sores are chiefly staphylococci P:Failure to wash hands and dishes properly. Dishes should be rinsed with water at 170DEG F. and not wiped. Millions of housewives and their reluctant offspring will be glad to learn bacteriologists' widely shared opinion that wiping not only wastes time but also spreads germs from towels.

P:Undercooking. Thorough heating destroys most bacteria and toxins.

In the Health News, Dr. Paul B. Brooks told of an upstate outbreak which resulted from two of these mistakes. A woman in the early stages of scarlet fever made sandwiches and left them out on a shelf overnight. "A lot of the people that ate them came down with the molly-grables and a little later a few . . . got scarlet fever." The scarlet fever resulted from living bacteria, the "molly-grables" (diarrhea and vomiting) from bacterial toxins, produced while the sandwiches incubated bacteria on the warm shelf.

/- This use of the word "ptomaine" is now scientifically obsolete. The idea that ptomaines (evil-smelling compounds formed in putrefaction) are to blame for food poisoning has proved unfounded.

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