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107
During this three weeks 18,000 dinners and suppers were
served, and yet there were only 74 cases of enteric fever, counting
every case.
4.—The following particulars were obtained in respect of
the fish frying :—The pans are cleaned out thoroughly once a
week. For frying, the best cotton seed oil at 27s. per cwt. is
used—from 1£ to 2 cwt. daily.
The fish takes 4 to 5 minutes or more to fry.
The temperature of the oil in the vat during frying ranged
from 406 to 424 degrees Fahrenheit.
Some large fish were taken and a thermometer pushed through
the mouth so as to be well imbedded in the flesh, and then fried
in the oil with the other fish. Care was exercised that the oil
did not have direct access to the thermometer bulb. The
minimum steady temperature, recorded in this wa), was 230
degrees Fahrenheit. If, therefore, the bacteriological origin of
typhoid is accepted, it will be necessary to postulate some sort of
salamander germ or fire bacillus to enable it to withstand this
high temperature and maintain its virulence unimpaired.
It may be alleged that the disease is due to a chemical poison
elaborated in the fried fish. The natural history of typhoid, and
the progressive development of its signs in man, are incompatible
with this suggestion. A chemical poison taken into the body
is eliminated once and for all. In typhoid fever the poison is
being continually produced and manufactured inside the patient's
body, and for this, as far as we now know, the presence of a
living organism is necessary.
The temperature in the abdominal cavity of the fish was very
much higher than the temperature given above for the fleshy part.