=Symptoms.=--The symptoms are much the same in all the cases of bacterial poisoning mentioned. Sudden and violent vomiting and diarrhea appear a few hours after eating the spoiled food, or may be delayed. There may be headache, colic, and cramps in the muscles. Marked prostration and weak pulse with cold hands and feet are characteristic. The appearance of skin eruptions is not uncommon. The occurrence of such symptoms in several persons, some hours after partaking of the same food, is sufficient to warrant one in pronouncing the trouble food poisoning. =Treatment.=--The objects of treatment are to rid the patient of the poison, and to stimulate the heart and general circulation, and draw on the reserve nerve force. It is best to procure medical aid to wash out the stomach, but when this is impossible, the patient should be encouraged to swallow plenty of tepid water and then vomit it. If there is no natural inclination to do so, vomiting may be brought about by putting the finger in the back of the throat. The same process should be repeated a number of times, and the result will be almost as good as though a physician had used a stomach tube. A teaspoonful of salt or tablespoonful of mustard in the water will hasten its rejection. Then the bowels should likewise be emptied. If vomiting continues this will not be possible by means of drugs given by the mouth, although calomel may be retained given in half-grain tablets hourly to an adult, until the bowels begin to move, or till eight to ten tablets are taken. When vomiting is excessive, emptying of the bowels may be brought about quickly by giving warm injections of soapsuds into the bowel with a fountain syringe. Brandy or whisky in teaspoonful doses given in a tablespoonful of hot water at half-hour intervals should follow the emptying of the stomach and bowels, and the patient must be kept quiet. He must also be kept warm by means of hot-water bags and blankets. =INFECTED FOOD.=--A frequent source of illness is infection by disease germs transmitted in food. The meat of animals slaughtered when sick with abscess, pneumonia, kidney disease, diarrhea, or anthrax (malignant pustule) carries disease germs and causes serious illness; so does the meat of animals killed after recent birth of their young, and probably having fever. Oysters may be contaminated with excrement from typhoid patients, and may then transmit the disease to those who eat them. Milk from diseased animals, or contaminated with germs of typhoid fever, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, etc., is apt to cause the same disease in the human being who drinks it.