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During the war (March, 1916), the result of an "Investigation of the pollution of tidal waters of
Maryland and Virginia with special reference to shellfish bearing areas," by Hugh S. Cumming, was published
by the Government Printing Office, Washington. The report is a fitting sequel to Dr. Bulstrode's
study of the same problem in this country in 1896. Chesapeake Bay is the largest bay on the Atlantic
seaboard of the United States, it is about 170 miles long and from 2¾ to 20 miles broad, on it are the
ports of Baltimore, Norfolk, Newport News, Richmond and Washington, and near its mouth are Hampton
Roads, one of the most important naval and military bases on the Atlantic coast. Baltimore is said to be
"the greatest oyster market and distributing centre in the country." Hampton is "one of the most
important oyster, fish and crab centres in the United States." Norfolk is "one of the great oyster
shucking and shipping centres of the world." Here on the great scale, for the drainage area of Cheapseake
Bay now has living upon it a population exceeding 6,000,000, there have been exhibited during the last
70 years phenomena like those with which Bulstrode made epidemiologists in this country familiar 25
years ago.
Maryland, the State including the northern part of Chesapeake Bay, had reached an output of
15,000,000 bushels of oysters in 1884, this had fallen to 3,500,000 bushels in 1911; quite early in the
middle of the 19th century pioneers established " wagon lines as far west as Pittsburgh—distribution
was enormously facilitated with the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio and other railroads." Virginia,
the State including the southern part of the bay, was later in the field ; it had, however, attained
to an output of 10,000,000 bushels in 1907, and then (after a marked fall in 1908) reached a total of more
than 13,000,000 bushels in 1912. "The State of Maryland has laws authorising the State Department of
Health to direct and regulate the construction of sewage disposal plants where necessary for the prevention
of pollution. Although more vitally affected than any other State by injury to her shellfish
industry, and despite the millions of dollars brought into the State by this industry, Virginia has no laws
regulating the pollution of her water."
The survey shows the need for a great deal of improvement. In Chincoteague Island, from
which place alone between 300,000 and 500,000 bushels of oysters and several million clams are shipped
annually all over the country, "a condition was found which was particularly dangerous and must
eventually have resulted in disaster In Hampton Creek conditions existed which were
intolerable; cases of illness have doubtless been caused for years by eating oysters from the Creek
In Mill Creek similar conditions existed In Annapolis Harbour and
especially in Spa Creek conditions were found similar to those in Hampton In Norfolk
Harbour certain beds used were found dangerously polluted and the State and Federal authorities
notified Of the 400,000 or 500,000 acres of shellfish producing areas in the waters of
Maryland and Virginia about 2,000 to 2,500 acres or one half of 1 per cent. have been found polluted
The principal problem is how to prevent absolutely the taking of oysters from beds which
have been condemned."
The report to be fully appreciated must be very carefully studied. The considerable prevalences
of typhoid, particularly in July and August in communities with a few thousand inhabitants, are
significant; they constitute as is stated, for example, "a menace to numerous oyster beds half a mile
away"; evidence, moreover, of serious injury to fish life generally is given. There is, in one instance,
the statement "there is no local health officer and no health authority other than the Mayor and sergeant.
These men are energetic and conscientious but they are not physicians nor trained sanitarians."
Again, it is noted, "the town is said to be in a receptive mood with regard to the installation of a complete
sewage system, preliminary plans for which have been drawn." In another case, "all other
considerations aside," it is said, "the City can hardly afford to jeopardise in this way an industry which
is of so much importance to its prosperity."
The custom of keeping oysters on the foreshore near privies "is deprecated, and so is the keeping
of oysters in a pile on a bed not far from a sewer outfall." "Surface privies are certainly," it is agreed,
"safer than would be a sewer discharging fresh sewage directly over the beds." The set of tides and
currents is studied, a river flowing through a harbour which forms a "collecting basin and (sewage)
disposal plant," is traced, all save the last hours of ebb flow, into Chesapeake Bay, and is then carried
towards two strands near by, where the shellfish have been found to suffer from "green gill," and the
local oyster trade "has been practically negligible for several seasons:" Then, too, there are detailed
descriptions of float experiments, with the comment" These results together with the topographical study
left no doubt that oysters from such a source were unfit for human consumption."
Considerable improvement had apparently resulted from the investigation and report. The
writer says: "For the past eight or ten years the consuming public all over the country has
had the opinion that the oyster is a rather dangerous article of food"; and he adds "The immediate
result of this condition has been injurious to the shellfish industry; the ultimate result will be
a great good to the industry." It seems difficult to escape the conclusion that the marked
decline in typhoid fever in the large American cities and presumably in smaller places in the
neighbourhood of shellfish layings too, during the last ten or fifteen years, has resulted from
recognition of the need of "preventing the taking of oysters from infected waters and the handling of
oysters in an insanitary manner."
A considerable measure of improvement was effected in this country 10 or more years earlier than
in America, with corresponding beneficial influence as regards the typhoid death-rate; but here, as there,
remains the difficulty of "preventing absolutely the taking of oysters (and of certain other shellfish also)
from beds which have been condemned." In one such instance cited for example, the State of Virginia
"several years ago forbade the taking of oysters for sale as food from a particular area In 1916,
there had been no enforcement of the law," and Surgeon Hugh S. Cumming writes, "tongers were
observed daily all over the forbidden area." "From a commercial standpoint," he adds, "the oysters