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at on clinical grounds, no bacteriological examinations being carried out,
or if carried out the findings being negative. The organism of Shigella
sonnei was recovered in three instances.
The cases were distributed throughout the year with no incidence
in any one period. There was only one instance of a secondary infection
in the home; in this the illness of a child of one year of age was followed
by a similar illness in her mother.
FOOD POISONING
The numbers of notifications of food poisoning received each year
since 1954 were 37, 57, 77, 65 and 44. This last year the number was 31.
Though this is a reflection of an actually lower incidence than has been
the case in recent years, too much should not be read into it as the fall
pointing to the problem being on the way to solution. The figures of
notifications are too unreliable for that. There are still too many cases
of sufferers not being notified for that to be accepted as the position. It
is still common on enquiries being made at the household of a sufferer,
to find that other members give a history of similar symptoms to the patient
who has been notified, but who have not themselves been notified, possibly
not even having had the attention of a doctor. Similarly, when
enquiries are made about a person at risk in some of the large scale food
poisoning occurrences outside the district, it is found that some sufferers
had symptoms sufficiently mild and possibly so evanescent that they had
not called in their doctors, but in whom these symptoms developed at
the same time as in the more seriously ill persons. On the other hand,
notifications of food poisoning are received in respect of some in whom
the diagnosis is in doubt. This is more likely to be the case of single
notifications. This occurred less often than usual this year, there being
only one single case of a child being notified with no examination of the
faeces, and one in which the examination failed to show the presence of
food poisoning organisms.
Most notifications related to persons who were involved in grouped
occurrences, either familial or associated with a canteen, even though in
many instances only one person was notified. Sometimes this would
be because the foodstuff was consumed outside the district and the person
notified was the only one living in the area and therefore the only one
to be notified here.
The first of these groupings was a family infection of five members
falling ill simultaneously. The food suspected was scotch eggs. S. typhimurium
was recovered from the patients. The next was a schoolI chi
who had meals at the school canteen. All other members of the family
remained well until some three weeks later when her sister fell ill. S. typhimurium
was recovered from the faeces of both. In July, a girl of three
had a birthday party. Eight of the eleven children and two of the nv
adults present became ill. S. Heidelberg was recovered from the faeces.
Many of the articles of food could have been the source of the orgams
but nothing was proved. In September, an adult woman and her adult