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Age 0-1 1-5 5-10 10-15 15-25 25-55 55-65 65- No age obtained.
Cases 26 12 84 26 41 6
From 34 of the above cases, stools were examined
with the following results:—
No pathogenic organisms found 26
Sonne Dysentery organism present 7
Bacillus Morgani present 1
It does not seem certain that the last named organism
will cause diarrhoea, but it is commonly found after or
in association with such cases. The Sonne Dysentery
organism having been found in several cases it can he
assumed that the epidemic, was due to it as it is notoriously
a difficult organism to trace, and often disappears
from the fæces and bowel at an early stage.
In four instances amongst the investigated cases,
two or more of the family suffered from the disease and
the infectivity appeared to be high.
It was soon obvious that cases were appearing
amongst the customers of every retail and wholesale food
or milk distributor in the area, and the only common
factors were air and water. The epidemic was late in the
year when flies were not about, and this method of spread
could be ruled out.
Samples of drinking water were obtained, but there
was no evidence that the organism was being transmitted
by that means.
If the transmission were by air then the method
would presumably be by droplet infection. The disease
is a bowel infection, and has never been considered to be
transmitted by other means than by food or milk
or water, and there has been no evidence to the contrary.
One would, in fact, have expected to find evidence
of spread through school, workplace or travel contact,
etc., but such was not always the case.
One is driven, therefore, to the supposition that
spread occurred by food substances and in view of the
widespread epidemic and the well known fact of the repeated
handling of such foods as bread, provisions,
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