The best established case of poisoning by means of bacterial products taken in with the food is the serious malady known somewhat inappropriately as botulism (botulus, sausage).[97] This kind of food poisoning, which has a characteristic set of symptoms, seems to have been first recognized and described in 1820 by the German poet and medical writer Justinus Kerner. In two articles (1820-22) he enumerates 174 cases with 71 deaths occurring in Württemberg between 1793 and 1822 and apparently in most cases connected with the use of insufficiently smoked sausage. Mayer[98] tabulates about 600 additional cases observed in various parts of Germany down to the end of 1908, the total mortality in the 800 cases being about 25 per cent. In France botulism is said to be very rare.[99] In Great Britain Savage[100] declares that he has been unable to trace the occurrence of a single outbreak. In the United States several instances of botulism poisoning are on record (Sheppard,[101] 1907, 3 cases, 3 deaths, canned pork and beans; Peck,[102] 1910, 12 cases, 11 deaths; Wilbur and Ophüls,[103] 1914, canned string beans, 12 cases, 1 death; Frost,[104] 1915, 3 cases, 3 deaths). Professor Stiles[105] has given a graphic description of his own attack of probable botulism due in all likelihood to minced chicken. [Illustration: FIG. 10.--_Claviceps purpurea:_ 1, ergot on rye-grass; 2, ergot on rye; 3, section of a portion of the conidial form of fruit, ×300; 4, a sclerotium or ergot; 5, head of ascigerous form of fruit; 6, an ascus, ×300; 7, a single spore, ×300. (After Massee, _Plant Diseases_, by courtesy of the Macmillan Company.)] _Symptoms._--The description of a case seen by Wilbur and Ophüls,[106] is so typical that it may be cited: