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not eaten by the other two who remained free from symptoms. In one of
the instances where two members of the family were affected, the patients
were the husband and wife of a family of four; the two sufferers had
eaten oysters while the other two in the family who were not affected had
not. Although this was a case in which the illness seemed to be related
to the consumption of a definite foodstuff, from neither patient was it
possible to recover food poisoning organisms. At another home the
mother, father and two children all succumbed to a gastro-intestinal
illness on the same day; in no instance though was it possible to recover
from the patients either food poisoning or dysenteric organisms. The
occurrence of some of these cases which seem to be definite cases of food
poisoning but from which no food poisoning organisms can be recovered,
raises the question of whether all the various organisms which can cause
food poisoning have been recognised or are being detected.
The other groupings of cases were more suggestive of food infection
than food poisoning. Two children attending a school at which other
pupils were suffering from dysentery had symptoms of this infection;
there was too an interval of forty-eight hours between the onsets of
illness in these cases. About the same time three other children of the one
family living in the same area suffered from diarrhoea with blood and
mucus in the stools. Also in much the same area, four children in a family
including one attending the school at which there were pupils suffering
from dysentery succumbed, the school child first, the others at intervals
of two, four and five days. In another case where four in the family were
affected, the three adults succumbed about the same time; they had all
eaten some fish which a daughter did not have and she escaped; on the
other hand, some eighteen hours after the onset of illness of the mother,
her breast-fed baby of three months of age had similar symptoms.
The largest outbreak of food poisoning—and one from which none
of the sufferers was notified—was that which occurred at a boys' school.
Some of the pupils from a nearby girls' school have their mid-day meals
at the canteen of this school. Of the 57 girls who had their meal there on a
Wednesday, 31 suffered from gastro-intestinal symptoms that night or
the next day. All the 57 girls had the same meat dish; but none of the
boys, nor any members of the staff. This was stewed steak. A quantity
of steak was delivered to the school on the Monday. About three-quarters
of this was cut-up and cooked on the Monday, kept in the refrigerator
overnight and was made up into steak pies for the Tuesday's mid-day
meat. The consumption of this was not followed by any illness. The
remaining quarter was not heated on the Monday; but after it had been
cooked on the Tuesday, was kept overnight in the refrigerator and alter
warming, was served-up as steak pies on the Wednesday. Of the fifty-seven
girls who had the meat nine developed symptoms during the night and a
further twenty-two during the daytime on Thursday. Although not a
who had this meat dish suffered from symptoms, none who did not have
it suffered. No foodstuffs were available for examination. From the
faeces of some of the sufferers CI. Welchii was recovered. The presumption
is that the original meat was infected, and that during the cooling after the
heating of the meat on the Tuesday the organisms multiplied sufficiently
to cause the meat to become toxic.