Mycotoxins—are they a menace?

During the years of the early fifties you could have heard said that a little bit of mould would not neces‐sarily harm you. No doubt this was due to the discovery of penicillin and other powerful antibiotics which could have come from moulds. The instinctive reaction, however, against moulds is to throw food showing signs of mould growth away and not to consume it. The deleterious activities of moulds have been recognized for many years. Crop losses caused by rusts and blights and the attacks of fungi on animal tissues are well known. These latter are generally known under the name of ‘Mycoses’. The commonest fungal attacks on man are such diseases as Athlete's Foot and Farmer's Lung.