PREVIOUS EXPERIMENTAL WORK TO DETERMINE CAUSE OF HAM SOURING.
A review of the literature reveals but one article bearing directly on the subject of the cause of ham souring.
In June, 1908, Klein[1] published in the London Lancet an article on “miscured” hams. He describes a miscured ham as one which has a distinctly putrid smell, and the tainted areas he describes as varying in color from a dirty gray to a dirty green, the muscular tissues in the strongly tainted areas being swollen and soft, or jelly-like. From such hams he isolated a large nonmotile, nonspore-bearing, anaerobic bacillus which he calls Bacillus fœdans. He cultivated the organism on different media and obtained from the cultures a putrid odor resembling that of the ham from which the culture was obtained, but did not attempt to produce tainting by injecting sound hams with the bacillus.
[1] Klein, E. On the nature and causes of taint in miscured hams. The Lancet, vol. 174, London, June 27, 1908.
While there can be little doubt that Klein’s bacillus was the cause of the tainting in those hams which he examined, the proof would certainly have been stronger had he injected sound hams with cultures and thus proven that he could reproduce tainting experimentally by means of his bacillus. Klein examined only dry-cured hams and does not state the temperature at which they were cured. He fails to offer any explanation as to how the bacillus gained entrance into the hams.