What is Clostridium botulinum?

Clostridium botulinum is a bacterium that grows in an oxygen-deficient environment and is extremely viable in canned foods and hermetically-sealed pickled foods, making it one of the most toxic toxins available. Clostridium botulinum is a deadly germ that secretes a toxin, one of the most virulent proteins, during reproduction. The military often uses this toxin in biochemical weapons. When people ingest and absorb this toxin, their nervous system will be damaged and they will experience symptoms such as dizziness, difficulty breathing and muscle weakness.

Dangers of botulism

Botulism can cause poisoning. Botulism poisoning is caused by oral ingestion. As long as the food contaminated with Clostridium botulinum is not strongly acidic or alkaline and is isolated from the air during storage, Clostridium botulinum can reproduce in large quantities and produce toxins. If the food is not thoroughly heated before consumption, it will not be able to kill the bacteria and destroy the toxin, thus causing poisoning.

Botulism is one of the most dangerous forms of bacterial food poisoning. Botulinum toxin is an exotoxin secreted by a widespread microorganism called Clostridium botulinum. Botulinum toxin is the world's most toxic class of toxic protein substances, its toxicity is more than 10,000 times arsenic. The lethal dose of botulinum toxin for human oral intake is 8~10 μg. 20 mg of botulinum toxin in a grain of rice can kill 2,000 people.

Symptoms of Botulism

Botulism is a rare but serious disease caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can lead to paralysis in patients. Typical symptoms of this disease include diplopia, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth, and muscle weakness. Infant patients exhibit lethargy, poor suckling, constipation, weak crying, and hypotonia.

At the beginning of the disease, dizziness, headache, general weakness, especially in the neck weakness is the most obvious, so it is difficult to lift the head; followed by numbness of the limbs, tongue hardness; and then can occur in a variety of muscle groups paralysis, the child is often manifested in the facial expressionless, blurred vision, difficulty in opening the eyes, and sometimes there is strabismus, eye movements are also limited, the face of the strange appearance is due to the domination of the face and the eyes of the paralysis of the muscles of the movement of the eyes. The strange appearance of the face is due to paralysis of the muscles governing the movement of the face and eyes.

At the same time, due to the paralysis of the muscles responsible for swallowing, chewing, swallowing is also difficult, choking and coughing when eating, speaking unclearly, or even completely unable to make a sound. As oral secretions gather in the pharynx, it is very easy to be mistakenly inhaled into the respiratory tract to cause aspiration pneumonia, and ultimately can cause respiratory failure due to paralysis of respiratory muscles, which is also the main cause of death in this disease.