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41
OYSTER CULTURE IN RELATION TO DISEASE.
An interesting report on the above subject was published
the latter part of the year in a Supplement to the Report of
the Medical Officer to the Local Government Board for the
year 1894-95.
Several doctors in England and America had reported
cases of typhoid fever which appeared to be due to the consumption
of oysters; and also Dr. Thorne, in his report on
" Cholera in England in 1893," showed that the distribution
of certain shell-fish from Cleethorpes and Grimsby had been
concerned in the diffusion of scattered cases of cholera over
a somewhat wide area in England.
These reports, receiving much prominence in the press,
had a serious effect upon the oyster industry, and led to the
above inquiry.
Dr. Bulstrode investigated the conditions under which
oysters and certain other edible molluscs are cultivated and
stored along the Coast of England and Wales; and Dr. Klein
conducted the Bacteriological researches.
The Supplement also contains a copy of the Report by
Professor Conn, on an outbreak of typhoid fever at Wesleyan
University, Middletown, Connecticut, and extracts from the
proceedings of the Academy of Medicine of Paris on the
spread of disease through the agency of oysters.
Dr. Thorne reports that in many places the oyster
"layings" are exposed to the risk of sewage pollution,