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various causes, and then settle upon food, and in such food start
chemical changes and form a virulent poison which, taken into the
human frame by way of the food, causes diarrhœa.
CHOLERAIC DIARRHOEA.
In Bromley a death from choleraic diarrhœa occurred in a man
aged 65 years, after three days' illness. The probable cause of the
complaint was the eating of mackerel and roast pork during the hot
weather.
A letter was received from the Medical Officer of the London
County Council asking to be informed of any suspected case of
Asiatic cholera, in order that material, whenever the circumstances
of the case made it desirable, might be examined by Dr. Klein.
DISINFECTING DEPARTMENT.
A Washington Lyon Disinfecting Machine has been fixed at the
Board's depot, and has been in full work since June. The apparatus
is the steam disinfector which Dr. Parsons, Assistant Medical Officer
to the Local Government Board, stated in his exhaustive report to
that body as giving the best results of any in their respective classes.
He reported that "the penetration of the heat into articles exposed
to steam took place more quickly than into the same articles when
exposed to dry heat." The superior efficacy of steam under pressure
more especially when super-heated, in penetrating badly conducting
materials, and dstroying infective matters, is clearly proved in his
report. The steam in the chamber is in fact super-heated and dried
by the steam in the jacket of the apparatus. The wetting effect of
the steam is diminished by having the chamber surrounded with a
jacket containing steam at a higher pressure. I instructed the men that
with badly-conducting materials, such as feather beds, it is necessary
to relax the pressure of steam in the chamber from time to time
whereby the penetrative power of the steam—by the ordinary laws of