This study analyzed food poisoning articles in the Joseonwangjosillok to acquire historical evidence. The study method used case studies from the textual content of the Joseonwangjosillok. In all, there were fifteen cases of food poisoning in spring (60%), four cases in summer (16%), five cases in fall (20%), and 1 case during winter (4%). Most cases of food poisoning occurred during spring, followed by fall, then summer, and the least during winter. Foods that caused poisoning were as follows: twelve cases of seafood (48%), three cases of vegetables (12%), two cases of meat (8%), and eight cases of poisonous food (32%). Maximum cases pertained to seafood poisoning, which also spiked during spring. This could be attributed to the increased number of planktons as the sea temperature rose during spring. Due to the increased plankton, shellfish absorbed more toxins. The consumption of increasingly toxic shellfish resulted in more cases of food poisoning. The food poisoning frequency was the most severe during the 18th century, followed sequentially by the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, and was the least severe during the 19th century. Joseonwangjosillok showed that food poisoning cases happened most during social events where many guests or family members gathered to eat.

KFDA compiles the statistical data of food poisoning outbreaks two or more persons since 2002in Korea and release them to the public on the web. There is a gap of outbreak number between the real situation and the reports. To reduce the gap, addition of sporadic individual case of food poisoning may be one of the solution method. The statistical data of Japan where food consumption pattern is similar to Korea, were used in this study to compare the ratio and the pattern between the outbreak cases two or more persons and individual cases. By doing so,the data of Japan regarding to outbreak cases two or more persons will be comparable to that of Korea. The data of 2002 and 2003 in Japan showed that sporadic individual cases were 43.3% in the total food poisoning cases. The individual cases occurred highly in unknown places (90-92.3%) and home (6.2-8.5%) whileas the outbreaks two or more persons occurred mostly in the place of restaurants (46.6-50.1%) and inns (9.2-9.8%). The food-borne pathogens attributed to the individual cases were C. jejuni (51.9%), Salmonella spp. (35.3%), and V. parahaemolyticus (9.8%)while those to the outbreak cases two or more persons were norovirus (31.3%), Salmonella spp. (20.8%), C. jejuni (15.5%) in Japan. The data of 2002-2009 between Korea and Japan showed the outbreak case report rate was 1:1.5based on the total population number.