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identical with the strains which were isolated from our cases.
Arrangements were made by the Ministry of Health for this
consignment of egg to be pasteurised before being returned
to circulation.
It is considered that this almost removed suspicion from
the pastrycook as the primary source of infection and that
he probably became infected in the course of his work,
although there was no definite proof of this. He could, howver,
have acted as a secondary cause of the spread of infection,
as he was symptomless.
A number of symptomless excreters were also discovered
among members of the families of patients, and
these were all kept under observation until three consecutive
negative stools had been obtained in each case.
It is interesting to note that no cases resulted, as far
as we are aware, from bakehouse products made with
Chinese frozen liquid egg of the batch which had yielded
the phage type Taunton, although most of this had been
used before our sample was taken from the small residue
which remained in the discarded tin. One may assume from
this and the fact that so few cases occurred in the outbreak
as a whole, that there were definite limiting factors which
may have been (1) destruction of organisms in the baking
process; (2) the fact that the whole of the tin of egg was not
uniformly infected but only in " islands and (3) immunological
factors connected with individual resistance and dose
of organisms.
No secondary cases occurred and the outbreak was considered
at an end within four weeks of its commencement.
The disease was relatively mild in most cases and showed
the classical signs of the disease. All patients were admitted
to hospital and made an uneventful recovery.
I wish to express my thanks to the Ministry of Health
and the Public Health Laboratory Service and, particularly,
to the Central Enteric Laboratory, Colindale, for the phage
typing.
Puerperal Pyrexia.
14 cases were notified during the year, all of which were
from Bexleyheath Maternity Hospital, where they were
isolated and treated.
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