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51
Although food poisoning is notifiable under the Food & Drugs Act,
every medical practitioner being required to send a certificate to the
Medical Officer of Health of the district if he becomes aware or suspects
that a patient whom he is attending is suffering from food poisoning, it is
very certain that the number of notifications received is but a small
fraction of the cases that should be notified. In this last year only one
case was notified. In no year have there been as many notifications as
the 11 in 1939 when food poisoning was first made generally notifiable.
The 1875 Public Health Act gave authorities power to deal with food
which was diseased, unsound or unwholesome. Later legislation enabled
improvements to be made in the state of the premises in which food was
prepared or sold or stored or handled. Other legislation has dealt with
the transport of certain foodstuffs. If all the provisions of the statutory
enactments, bye-laws and regulations relating to food and its handling
were enforced to their utmost, however, this would necessarily lead to
the abolition of food infections. This is not to be achieved by the
application of penal provisions of the legislation, but rather by the
education of all those concerned. This relates not only to those who
deal with the preparing and the handling of the food, including the housewife,
but with all those who deal at any stage with the foods or the
containers or the machines which are used. With this in mind the
Council accepted the recommendation of the Public Health Committee
that a campaign should be opened with a view to raising the standard of
food hygiene throughout the district. To deal with this the Public Health
Committee appointed the Food Hygiene sub-committee.
In this district there are 904 trades or businesses concerned with the
handling of food at which two or more assistants are employed. Those
concerned with the preparation of food for consumption on the premises
number 120, including 45 restaurants, 21 tea shops and cafes attached to
shops, and 54 dining rooms or snack bars. This figure does not include
the 16 public houses at which meals are served, the factory canteens,
the school canteens and the civic restaurants. There are 123 butchers'
shops, 217 grocers, 122 fruiterers and greengrocers, 61 fish shops (wet and
dry, 34; fried fish, 15; wet, dry and fried, 12), 166 sweet shops, 59
confectioners (20 with bakeries attached) and 36 dairies. There are 21
manufacturers and 162 retailers of ice-cream. Foodstuffs are sold at 9
multiple stores. In addition to all those concerned at these very many
premises, there are the street vendors and delivery hands. Because
of the very large numbers involved, the widespread nature of the district
and the many separate shopping centres, it was decided not to attempt
to deal at the one time with all those concerned in the handling of food.
Because of the large numbers and because, too they were dealing with
the food in its final state before consumption, the catering industry were
first approached. There was a gratifying response to the invitation sent
to them to attend a meeting at which the Chairman of the Council presided
and at which the aims of the Food Hygiene sub-committee were
submitted by the Chairman of the Public Health Committee. A subcommittee
of those interested was set up in which those actually handling
the food were well represented. The Food Hygiene sub-committee of
the Council is kept in touch with this sub-committee by one of their