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119
In the course of the enquiries it was discovered that certain items in
the menu appeared to be common to the banquets and the dinner in
the restaurant. These were eliminated one by one until suspicion finally
rested upon ice cream.
Owing to the time that had elapsed between the actual infection and
the date of making it known to this Department it was impossible to
obtain any of the consignment of ice cream which had fallen under
suspicion.
Medical examination of all the staff that had handled the commodity
in question was arranged by the firm, and the City bacteriologist, Dr.
Pulvertaft, took swabs of all a ft directly concerned with the banquets,
including lift and cloak room attendants and persons concerned with
the preparation of ice cream. Several showed positive results (hemolytic
streptococci) but subsequent - .abs proved negative. In connection
with this one member of the staff in the ice cream house was excluded
from work until a negative swab was obtained.
The Ministry of Health was notified of the illness by certain of the
sufferers, none of whom lived in Westminster, and Dr. Letham, of the
Ministry, was detailed to conduct an investigation. All the information
that had been obtained by this Department was put at Dr. Letham's
disposal and some further enquiries were pursued in collaboration with
the Ministry. It appeared that there was a possibility that the cream
used for the decoration of the ice cream on that particular night may have
been the agency conveying infection, but no direct evidence was obtained
to substantiate this.
Food Poisoning.
(1) Notification was received in December from the Medical Officer of
Health of Hammersmith of a case of food poisoning in a resident in his
area.
It arose following a banquet held at a restaurant in this City and
other persons attending the same function were stated to have suffered
from similar symptoms. The diners numbered 191, but only 8 or 9
persons seemed to have been in any way affected, the symptoms being
intestinal pains, vomiting and dir rrhcea.
Investigations were at once carried out. menus examined, &c., but
nothing in the evidence obtained pointed to any particular circumstance
or article of food as likely to have been the cause.