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was held on board on the 17th April attended by the Deputy Medical Officer of Health and an
urgent full scale operation was launched to find further cases or carriers as follows:-
(i) All ships company who had been on board from the 11th to 17th April were requested to
submit faecal specimens.
(ii) Names and addresses of all shore staff who had eaten on board during the same period to be
obtained.
The first faecal specimens were sent to the Pathology Laboratory at Greenwich Hospital on
the 19th April. Further specimens were delivered daily as collected.
On the 23rd April two engine room ratings reported to the Shipping Federation Medical Centre
suffering from sickness and diarrhoea. Both ratings were interviewed and detailed accounts
taken of their movements and food consumed. It was established from this that these two cases
were not related to the food poisoning being investigated on board. Further stool samples were
however sent to the laboratory. These eventually proved negative.
The first results on the stool specimens were received from the laboratory on the 24th April
and continued to be received almost daily thereafter. On this date a junior engineer officer returnr
ed to the ship from leave and reported that S. typhimurium had been isolated from his stools and
the condition had not responded to treatment. He was therefore signed off and returned home to
continue treatment (Case D). Information was also being received from the Medical Officer of
Health for the Port of Hull and Goole regarding the results of tests carried out in other parts of
the country on crew members who had disembarked at Hull. It was therefore possible to pick out
those members who had not for one reason or another submitted samples elsewhere, and stool
samples were obtained from them by 26th April. Fortunately, from the preventive medicine point
of view, the sailing date of the ship had now been put off to the 29th April.
A further positive excretor was reported by the laboratory on the 26th April. This was another
junior engineer officer and he was signed off and sent home to receive treatment (Case E).
The outstanding results on stool specimens were received on 29th April, which was sailing
day. All of these results were reported as negative. A final visit to the ship was made and the
ship's company were reported well. Advice was given to the Master and the Purser/Catering
Officer regarding suggested action to be taken should any further cases arise. This included
references in the Ship Captains Medical Guide and copies of the Authority's "Clean Food Handling"
booklet were left on board for distribution.
The rationale for the investigation at such a late date after the first onset, was to look for
carriers rather than the cause of the infection, as it was virtually impossible to trace food in use
at the time in question, the ship having taken on harbour stores in Hull for the coastwise voyage.
The only information that was given was to the effect that some cartons of deep frozen fish had,
on thawing out, been found to smell rather badly — and these were not used. On this basis the
the remaining cartons of fish had been rejected by the Ministry of Transport Ship Surveyor at Hull
and'had been dumped at sea.
Water supplies were not investigated because the number of cases and the time interval
between taking water in Australia and the first case did not justify any suspicion of infection
from this source.
The investigation was complicated by the two engineroom ratings reporting sickness with
diarrhoea — yet faecal samples proved negative, twice on one and once on the other rating. Likewise,
results from the pathology laboratory at Greenwich on tests from the able seaman (Case C),
and galley boy (Case B) proved negative for both faecal and blood samples.
A total of 51 faecal samples were taken. These covered
(1) All hands aboard ship period 11th - 18th April.
(2) All inward voyage crew on board on arrival in London.
(3) All hands returning to ship from leave but not previously sampled.
Of the 51 samples submitted one proved positive (Case E).
Great difficulty was encountered in trying to cover every person aboard ship during the time
of the investigation, as the ship appeared at times to be a clearing centre for crew staffing others
of the company's ships in port.
Of the five cases found, all except case D had been entered in the Medical logduringthe
homeward voyage. Cases A, B & C are mentioned above. Case E was the third case of gastroenteritis.
The exact source of the infection will never be known. However, every effort was made
to ascertain that the ship sailed without any carriers on board and that the whole of the ship's
catering compartments were thoroughly clean and disinfected. It should be emphasised that a
person can be prohibited by a Port Health Authority from embarking on a ship only when he is
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