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extent can be accounted for by the very much greater extent to which
people these days, as contrasted with the position before the war, have
meals away from their homes, whether in works' canteens or in school
canteens. The same faults in technique which might have caused a family
outbreak before, under today's conditions can result in a large-scale
occurence.
in common with those in many other districts, the Council planned
a clean food campaign. It was directed on three fronts. The first was to
ensure that the premises in which food was prepared or stored or handled
was of satisfactory hygienic standard. While food stuffs prepared in dirty
insanitary conditions will not necessarily give rise to trouble to those who
consume them, there is much more risk of this happening than when the
standards of hygiene are high. Clean premises and equipment easy to
cleanse and nothing to encourage the breeding of flies are minimal
acceptable standards. Trouble might follow even when the best equipment
is used if the workers are ignorant of the importance of the elementary
standards of hygiene. The second front then was the education of those
engaged with foodstuffs at any stage. The third approach was the education
of the housewives who it was hoped would insist on the highest standards
in the shops where they bought their foodstuffs or the cafes or restaurants
where they had their meals out, and would themselves practice these in
their own kitchens.
Most of what was stressed was only indirectly related to food poisoning.
Probably little enough real trouble follows the consumption of
bread which has fallen on the roadway, or of foodstuffs which have been
put in a paper bag which has been blown on to open it. These acts are
more important as being indications of a low standard of hygiene. The
person who did such things would be more likely than one who did not,
to carry on his occupation without washing his hands after having been
to the lavatory and he could then be a very real danger.
Cases of food poisoning still occur because of faults on the part of
those handling foodstuffs. Explosive outbreaks of staphylococcal infection
still result from the contamination of food stuffs and multiplication of the
organisms which obtain admission from an uncovered sore on the finger
of a handler or from a nasal discharge. Ft is still necessary and will continue
to be necessary for the inspectors to pay their periodic visits to
premises dealing with foodstuffs to see that the premises are satisfactory,
that the technique of those handling the food is sound, and that there are
no practices such as the reheating of meat which in certain circumstances
might give rise to such trouble.
There has been a change though in the manner in which the food is
being infected. Today, so very much of the food poisoning in which the
cause has been identified has been found to be Salmonellae. It is now
appreciated that to control the trouble it is necessary to discover how the
or ganisms found their way into the food stuff. Sometimes it will be because
one animal has been infected by another; sometimes the animal will have