UHS Brings In Bacteriologist To Study Food Poisoning Case

University Health Services last week hired Wilfred B. Krabek, retired UHS inspector, as a special consultant to try to identify the still-undetermined strain of bacterium responsible for the March 27 South House food poisoning.

Dr. Warren E.C. Wacker, director of UHS, said yesterday the state laboratory of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is also currently trying to identify the organism.

He said the organism, which affected more than 20 people who ate seafood newburg at Cabot and Whitman Halls, may be a rare variety of salmonella. "If a common strain of bacterium reacts in a common way it takes about 48 hours to identify; if less common, it takes longer," he said.

Sholem Postel, associate director of UHS, said yesterday the identification process became complicated when serotyping determined the organism to be salmonella but chemical reactions did not verify the finding.

Postel said Krabek was hired to resolve the discrepancies and that investigation in a state lab "is not unusual for something questionable like this."

Krabek said yesterday the investigation "is too much up in the air" to say what the findings will be.

Alice Davies, a resident of Whitman Hall of South House, said yesterday many students remained ill until last Wednesday and that "a great many people had come down with the illness 24 hours later."

Postel said the Whitman and Cabot Kitchen food handlers have all been asked to bring in stool samples and are in the process of being "checked out." He said this has not yet provided an answer.