View report page

149
BROMLEY.
Metropolitan Asylums Board's Hospitals 9
Sick Asylum 3
12
BOW.
Metropolitan Asylums Board's Hospitals 4
4
Shellfish* and Predisposing Causes.
Ten cases of Typhoid Fever were stated by the patients or their
friends to be due to eating shellfish, as follows:—
* While this report is being written The Public Health (Shellfish) Regulations, 1915,
have been issued by the Local Government Board, and they will come into operation
on 1st March, 1915.
By Article II(2) of the Regulations "the Local Authority may require any fishmonger
supplying shellfish in the district to furnish to the Medical Officer of Health,
within a reasonable time fixed by them, a list of all the layings, so far as, with the exercise
of due diligence, he can ascertain them, from which his supply of shellfish is derived or
has been derived during the six weeks last preceding the date of the requirement, together
with any information in his possession which will assist the Medical Officer of Health in
ascertaining the particular laying or layings from which the suspected shellfish were
derived, and, if the supply or any part of it is obtained through any other fishmonger,
may make a similar requisition upon that fishmonger, and a fishmonger on whom such a
requisition is made shall comply with the requisition."
Machinery is provided by the Regulations for the closing of shellfish layings in regard
to which there is evidence to show that shellfish from such layings have actually caused
infectious or other disease, or are likely to be a source of danger to public health. The
power to close layings is vested by the Order in the Sanitary Authority in the district
in which the layings are situated, and a right of appeal to the Board is provided for in the
particular case specified in Articles VI. and XI. of the Regulations.
The Sanitary Authority of the district in which the layings are situated are required
to take action on receipt of a representation from another Local Authority, in whose
district the shellfish are consumed, indicating that the shellfish have caused or are likely
to cause infectious or other disease, or, on the report of their own Medical Officer of Health,
if such shellfish are found in their own district.
Apart from any representation from another district, the Medical Officer of Health
of every district in which shellfish are laid should examine the conditions of the layings
in his district and should report to the Local Authority any cases in which the layings
are so situated as to be liable to dangerous contamination, with a view to steps being
taken under the Regulations to prevent shellfish being distributed for sale for human
consumption from such layings unless the shellfish have been relaid in fresh water for a
period sufficient to free them from contamination. The Board are advised that, as a
general rule, the period of relaying required to rid shellfish of micro-organisms should
not be less than a fortnight.