Symptoms of the diseases

A person infected with the common Clostridium perfringens experiences severe pain in the abdomen accompanied by nausea and occasionally vomiting. In rare cases, fever is also experienced. This occurs as the bacterium multiplies in the intestines which may start after ten hours of ingestion. Consumption of food that is contaminated with a type C strain of the clostridia causes enteritis necroticans which is a very severe illness. The severity of the symptoms may differ in different individuals with some experiencing less severe symptoms than others even after a long period after ingestion. In case a person suffers substantial problems with his/her health like dehydration, he/she may end up dying. Diagnosis of perfringens poisoning is done by observing specific symptoms of this illness and may be confirmed in a laboratory by culturing specimens on blood agar plates where the bacterium grows in absence of air producing colonies that cause complete hemolysis of red blood cells causing the media to appear light yellow and is usually transparent. The colonies are inoculated on another agar plate containing egg yolk to identify the toxin-producing colonies (Novak, 2003, p. 387).