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same meals without ill effect, often suggests
that cases of diarrhoea (and vomiting)
thought at first to be food poisoning must
have been due to other unidentified causes.
Illustrative of this was a complaint
received that an outbreak of "food poisoning"
had occurred amongst persons who had partaken
of a canteen meal in a local factory•
Fourteen employees stated they had suffered
from diarrhoea, and six of these detailed
their symptoms to the Sanitary Inspector.
The suspected meal had been sent in bulk from
an adjoining cafe. It was found that the
cafe had also served some three hundred persons
with a similar lunch prepared under identical
conditions and evidently without complaint.
This was checked by enquiry at the offices of
a Services detachment which comprised a high
proportion of these customers. The cafe
could in these circumstances be regarded as
most probably exonerated and consideration had
to be given to the possibility of contamination
at the factory. Here again, fifty such meals
were served and while it was quite possible
that more than fourteen persons had suffered
some not reporting - the majority had experienced
no ill effect. All but three "cases"
were at work on the day following and no
samples of faeces could be obtained. In the
case of only two absentees was medical evidence
obtainable, one was visited by the Medical
Officer of Health of the district in Which she
resided and he found her to be suffering from
tonsillitis. The other was certified by her
medical attendant to be suffering from gastroenteritis
but any investigation of this case
was blocked by the impossibility of discovering
her whereabouts.
Thus while nothing other than the
canteen meal was suspected there was absence
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