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43
The Commissioners point out that this branch of their' enquiry was
undertaken in consequence of the numerous communications the Local
Government Board had received during the past two years from Local
Authorities and Reports from Medical Officers of Health relative to outbreaks
of Enteric Fever and other illness attributed to sewage-polluted
shellfish.
That there is a growing demand for legislation for dealing with this
question is shown by the statement that, in addition to the Corporation
of London, many of the Metropolitan Boroughs (including the City of
Westminster), the London County Council, the Corporations of Brighton
and Southampton, and the Rural District of Chelmsford advocate this
course, and the Commissioners state that the evil is sufficiently grave to
demand a remedy.
As to the possibility of communication of disease through shellfish
the Report states that experience has confirmed the view that at times
the specific organisms of typhoid in a living condition might be conveyed
by shellfish to the consumer and thus produce in him Enteric Fever. A.
note is also made of the fact that the representatives of the shellfish
industry do not seriously contend that this view is unsound.
The extent of illness attributable to such cause is difficult to determine
precisely, but a consideration of the whole of the evidence satisfied the
Commission that a considerable number of Enteric Fever cases and other
illnesses are due to sewage-polluted shellfish, also that, as before stated,
" the evil is sufficiently grave to demand a remedy."
The Report emphasises the fact that the Government admitted the
need for legislative interference so long ago as 1899 by the introduction
of the " Oyster Bill," referred to in my former Reports to the Committee.
The remedial measures proposed are divided into three general
classes:—
1. Purification of the sewage before its discharge into tidal waters.
The Commission do not consider it possible to lay down by enactment
any general rule for treatment of sewage effluent, but that careful and
skilled examination must be made of the local condition in each case
before determining the conditions under which its discharge into tidal
waters would be permitted.
2. The seizure or destruction of unwholesome shellfish exposed for
sale.
They consider that the necessities of the case cannot be met by general
enactment as to sewage treatment or as to seizure of unwholesome shellfish,
but that "the remedy must be. sought in connection with the waters,
"foreshores, pits, ponds and layings themselves."