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44
(2) SHELLFISH.
The shellfish layings on the North side of the Estuary of the Thames continue
to be subject to the Order issued by the Port Sanitary Authority in November, 1916,
under the Public Health (Shellfish) Regulations, 1915. In December the Ministry of
Health issued the Public Health (Shellfish) Regulations, 1934, which come into
operation on 1st January, 1935, and which will permit your Worshipful Committee to
vary your Orders of 1916 which you have for some years desired to do, but for which
there was no provision under the 1915 Regulations.
In the schedule to the new Regulations is a model form of Order as follows:—
Public Health (Shellfish) Regulations, 1934.
Order made by the*
*Insert name
of Local
Authority.
In pursuance of the powers conferred on them by the Public Health (Shellfish)
Regulations, 1934, the*
herebv make the followins Order
†Insert
description of
Area.
1. In this Order, "prescribed area" means:—
†
**These
words should
be varied
according to
circumstances.
***Omit any
of the following
words
which may
be unsuitable.
2. A person shall not sell, or expose or distribute or offer for sale or have in his
possession for the purpose of sale for human consumption any (**shellfish,
mussels, cockles) taken from within the prescribed area***, unless such
**shellfish, mussels, cockles have been—
(i.) subjected to a satisfactory process of cleansing at an establishment
which is for the time being approved by the Minister of Health for
the purpose ; or
(ii.) relaid in pure water for such period and in such place as may from
time to time be approved for the purpose by the said Council; or
(iii.) subjected to a process of sterilisation by steam under pressure for
at least six minutes in an apparatus which is for the time being
approved by the said Council.
3. This Order shall come into operation on the day of 193 .
Given under the Common Seal of the
this day of , 193 .
When the draft of these Regulations was under discussion between the
Association of Port Sanitary Authorities and the Ministry of Health, it appeared that
the system of dealing with polluted shellfish layings by closure was far from satisfactory
from the point of view of both the protection of the public health and the
interests of the shellfish industry. Your Medical Officer was accordingly requested
to make some suggestions as to other lines of approach towards the solution of this
problem, and at the Meeting of the Medical Committee of the Association of Port
Sanitary Authorities on 30th November, 1934, he read the following short Paper:—
"I submit that the present system of closure of polluted layings is ruinous to
the shellfish industry and unsatisfactory from a public health point of view.
"Most of the shellfish beds in the British Isles are more or less exposed to contamination
by sewage. Some are so grossly polluted that closure has been necessary;
in regard to others, though there is topographical and, indeed, bacteriological evidence
of pollution, they have never been definitely incriminated in connection with any
outbreak of disease, and therefore such drastic action as closure has never been taken.
Nevertheless, such layings are a constant source of anxiety, as being a potential
danger to the public health. There are a few, a diminishing number, yielding
shellfish which will pass a rather generous and purely arbitrary bacteriological
standard.