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Food Poisoning (including Sonne Dysentery).
Seven cases of dysentery and two cases of food
poisoning were reported during the year, as against 38
cases of dysentery and seven cases of food poisoning
during the previous year.
One might almost say that the figures relating
to the incidence of food poisoning (including Sonne
Dysentery) reported in the Urban District over the past
few years, always remembering that many cases are
presumably never reported to us, indicate that this
type of infection can now be regarded as virtually
endemic in the resident population. Having regard
to the increasing number of food poisoning outbreaks
which are occurring throughout the country each year,
even taking into account the much more accurate recording
system now practised, it must be realised that the
commoner organisms which cause food poisoning, particularly
the salmonellae, seem to have established themselves
throughout the population, especially the urban population
of these islands. Fortunately, we can at least
say that the simpler, non-fatal form of food poisoning
has now taken the place of such diseases of the gastrointestinal
tract as cholera and the enteric fever group.
In other words, killing diseases which formerly swept
the population in vast, over-whelming waves, have now
been replaced by comparatively mild attacks of food
poisoning caused by some of the germs apparently
introduced within recent years into this country.
This would appear to be highly satisfactory
when the picture presented less than 100 years ago with
regard to such diseases as cholera and typhoid fever
is placed against the food poisoning and dysentery
situation as we know it to-day. This, however, is
only part of the story. So long as outbreaks or
even individual cases of food poisoning occur, so long
must it be realised that these attacks are neither
haphazard nor the result of some unfortunate coincidence.
Food poisoning is the logical result of faulty methods
in the selling, handling, preparation and cooking of
food. The fact that the number of food poisoning
outbreaks reported each year from England and Wales,
however small these outbreaks may be, is very much
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