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(the patients themselves, be it noted, and not merely the relations or friends—and
such enquiry has usually meant a visit to the patient in hospital in each instance),
clearly disposes, so far as outbreaks of disease and so far as the particular time, the
37th-48th weeks of the year, are concerned, of suspicion as regards shell-fish, watercress,
celery, lemonade, ginger beer, water, milk and ice-cream, while leaving suspicion,
in some outbreaks amounting to certainty, that fish (usually fried fish) was
at fault.
It may be asked why should fried plaice come so specially under suspicion,
and why just at this particular time (37th-48th weeks) of the year. First of all,
the plaice which has come in question has always been immature plaice, from 4 to
10 inches in length (10 to 25 c.m.), and there is a presumption that most of it has
been consumed ungutted. Such plaice seem to be specially dangerous when consumed
in August or September. In this connection the following passage from Mcintosh
and Masterman's "British Marine Food Fishes " (p. 365) may be quoted. "Close
in shore the little plaice hidden in the sand or sandy mud grow rapidly and prosper, in
company to some extent with little flounders and dabs, and as they become older they
not only migrate alongshore but move seaward with increasing bulk till at last they
complete their life cycle by spawning and launching their thousands of offspring
upon the sea of life." The eggs are launched late in each year, the little plaice
are found very abundantly in the inshore plaice nurseries in the early months of the
following year, attaining at eight months old some 3 inches, and at a year old some
4½ inches in length. Thus about September large numbers of these small immature
fish have reached a size of 4 or 5 inches; in bygone years (particularly in the nineties)
considerable numbers of such fish were fried and sold ungutted in many of the
poorer parts of London.*
As mentioned in the Annual Report for 1919 (vol. III., p. 19), efforts have
been made from time to time by the fish trade to obtain legislation preventing
the sale of fish under a certain size. In 1906 the London County Council raised
the question with the City Corporation as to the need for inspection, more particularly
of these small fish, at Billingsgate. The bulk of the small plaice reaching London
at that time came from an area known as A3, near the mouth of the Elbe, including"
the "Continental Nursery Grounds and close inshore waters where very small plaice
abound." This area says Dr. Masterman, in a report of 1915 on the "Distribution:
of Plaice," has been increasingly abandoned by English trawlers, and this has
been especially the case since about 1907; indeed, about 6 years age" (i.e., in
1909), " first the Hull, and then a year or two later, the Grimsby boats, altogether
discontinued going there." The Departmental Committee's Report of 1914 practically
confirms this (see Questions and Answers set out in Annual Report for 1919
(vol. III., pp. 16-19). Question 525 refers to the estuaries on the English coast.
Question 4539 (loc. cit., p. 16) deals with nurseries in the Bight of Heligoland and on
the Dutch, German and Danish coasts. Questions 7172 and 7309 (p. 18), refer
to complaints as to use of these German nursery grounds, as to voluntary agreements
entered into by fishermen to keep off these grounds, and as to difficulty in securing
that these agreements were kept.
The gradual falling away from about 1904 in the autumnal wave of tvphoid
fever in London, the disappearance of the wave in 1909, and its absence from 1912*
onwards, tally very closely with the disuse of these grounds as a source of London
food supply. On the cessation of the war, resort to the grounds in question by
trawlers was still severely restricted, if not altogether ruled out, owing to danger
from mines in this part of the North Sea.
* This fact was ascertained by purchasing samples of these small fish and dissecting them. A
point of some interest is that the gut in such small fish is apt to contain quite small cockles 4 to ¼ inch
across, and this no doubt explains the further fact that sufferers from typhoid fever, in 1900 and
1903, again and again complained of the "gritty feeling to the teeth," and the "gassy taste," of
their fried fish.