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67
Rate of Persons notified per 1000 inhabitants :—0.6 Inner
Districts, and 0.2 Outer Districts.
Of the 86 Typhoid-infected houses 55 {i.e., 63.9 per cent.)
showed, on inspection, defective drains, traps, fittings or appliances.
In 11 (i.e., 12.8 per cent.), the drains themselves
were found to be defective.
21 cases out of the 89 were traced to sources outside the
Borough, and 23 were secondary cases, i.e., derived from
previous cases in the Borough. No case could be traced
definitely and conclusively to infected ice creams, water, milk,
oysters or watercress, though a slight outbreak of 19 cases
appeared to be connected with infected cockles, one of 2 cases
with an open sewer, and one of 3 cases with infected ice-cream.
The cockles outbreak took place in Marsh and Bishop's Wards—
19 cases in all (June to July), with 4 deaths—3 males, aged 20,
32 and 38 years respectively, and 1 female, aged 25 years.
Samples of the infected cockles were taken from 2 separate
stalls in the New Cut and Lower Marsh respectively, and
submitted to bacteriological examination—the samples being, in
the first instance, washed in sterile water to remove, as far as
possible, surface contamination. Afterwards, mice were fed
with portions of the cockles or with emulsions of the cockles,
but without any ill effects, and the inoculation experiments
on guinea-pigs were likewise negative. The plate cultures
made from the cockles yielded a variety of micro-organisms
—the media employed for their isolation being Conradi,
Drigalski Agar and neutral red lactose Agar. Of the culture
plates, all suspicious colonies were transplanted, and submitted
to a detailed examination. In neither sample of cockles were
specific pathogenic organisms of the typhoid, paratyphoid or
food poisoning type (the bacillus rriteritidis of Gaertner)
detected ; but both samples contained large numbers of colon
bacilli of the intestinal type, and of these colon bacilli, a culture,
which was tested for pathogenic properties, proved virulent to