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89
Bethnal Green. All were found to be suffering from
varying degrees of gastro-enteritis. Enquiries elicited
from the information that all had attended a wedding
party at premises in Stepney lasting from 2 p.m. on
the 30th August until 2 a.m. on the 31st August. The
food offered between those hours consisted of small
sandwiches of egg, salmon and cress with coffee
about 3.45 p.m.; at 4 p.m. lunch, comprising soup,
bulicni (said to consist of lights and liver chopped up
and bound with paste), giblet .pie, chicken and baked
potatoes, green salad and mayonnaise. At 8 p.m., the
menu for dinner was cocktail, salted almonds, grape
fruit, hoi's d'oeuvres varies, egg mayonaisse, Scotch
salmon with sauce hollandaise and cucumber salad,
vermicelli soup and fillets, tomato soup, roast veal with
mushroom sauce and mixed vegetables, French salad,
lemon ice, roast chicken with French potatoes and green
peas, cucumber and olives, ice pudding, wine jellies,
compote of fruit, dessert, black coffee. Drinks, whisky,
cherry brandy, kummel, home-made wines. Endeavours
were made to obtain any food that might have been
left over either at the Stepney premises or at the establishment
in Hackney where the food came from, but
everything remaining had been thrown out as waste.
Investigation seemed to point out that illness occurred
in only those who had eaten the chopped liver or giblet
pie at 4 o'clock. The chopped liver was, in all probability
to blame as one patient stated she thought it was
"off."
No vomited material could be obtained, but faeces
from one patient were sent for clinical examination,
the result of which was as follows:—"The specimen is
light in colour and of semi-fluid consistency. In addition
to traces of the usual faecal debris it shows a definitp
excess of mucus together with rather more than a trace
of pus, an occasional blood disc, and some columnar cells
from the intestinal mucosa. The stained preparations
show coliform bacilli, anaerobes, and micrococci.
The cultures contain B. coli, intestinal streptococci,
and a non-lactose fermenting bacillus having the cultural