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27
SHELLFISH POLLUTION.
WINKLES.
It is a well-established fact that infectious diseases, especially Enteric Fever,
can be transmitted to human beings by the agency of sewage-contaminated
shellfish.
The oyster is the shellfish that is more generally associated, in the public
mind, with this danger, but cockles, mussels and winkles are probably more
to be suspected.
The late Sir Richard Thorne, so far back as 1894, expressed his conviction
that the distribution of shellfish from Cleethorpe and Grimsby as a centre had
been concerned in scattered cases of Cholera over a somewhat wide area of
England. This resulted in the appointment of Dr. Bulstrode to undertake a
comprehensive enquiry into the circumstances under which molluscs were
cultivated and stored along our coasts.
Dr. Bulstrode's report, which was published in 1896, showed conclusively
that at that date in the greater part of the layings shellfish were cultivated
under conditions that rendered them specially liable to sewage pollution, and
although since then some attempt has been made in some places to modify the
evil, much remains to be done.
Since this report public attention has been called from time to time to outbreaks
of Enteric Fever through the agency of shellfish, and this danger will be
an ever-present one until the State interferes and protects the public by means
of statutory measures for the control of the conditions under which molluscs are
cultivated and stored.
In spite of the fact that a Royal Commission reported in December, 1903,
that—
"We (the Commissioners) have no doubt that shellfish which have
"become contaminated by sewage may convey Enteric Fever and other
"illnesses to human beings, if eaten either raw or in an imperfectly
"cooked condition ; " *
Also that—
"There can, however, be no doubt that the evil is sufficiently grave to
"demand a remedy;"
nothing appears have been done in the direction indicated, although repeated
representations have been made to the Governmental Departments directly
concerned with the protection of the public health.
* Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on Sewage Treatment and Disposal (Pollution of Tidal Waters
with special reference to Contamination of Shellfish).