Armstrong – Table of Contents

growing in the tubes produced abundant spores and lethal toxin. In this experiment the
investigators showed that the olives could support growth of the organism and the
production of botulinum toxin.
Armstrong suspected that alcohol might possess the property of destroying botulinum
toxin. The epidemiological data that supported this suspicion was the recovery of two
patients after eating one or two olives. These two patients had partaken alcoholic drinks
more or less freely during the evening. By mixing various dilutions of toxin with ½
milliliter of 95% alcohol and injecting the mixture into guinea pigs, Armstrong found that
he could protect guinea pigs against 20 times the lethal dose of raw toxin.
Armstrong also wanted to test the immunological properties of blood from persons who
had had previous exposure to botulinum toxin. He collected blood from several of the
recovered patients. Comparing blood from these patients with blood from normal
controls, he found that the controls contained approximately the same quantity of
antibodies that could agglutinate the bacillus as the blood from the patients. He also
found that blood obtained from recovered patients did not neutralize the lethal effect of
toxin. From other studies that he conducted, Armstrong concluded intuitively that illness
and death occurred from preformed ingested toxin and not by new toxin formation within
the gastrointestinal tract by ingested organisms. It was possible that the ingested toxin,
though lethal, did not occur in sufficient antigenic quantity to stimulate a strong immune
response. These findings followed the conclusions of other previous investigators (9)
cited by Armstrong in the manuscript.
Armstrong also examined some of the patients clinically and tabulated a summary of
physical signs and symptoms. Pathology examination in the patients and guinea pigs was