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127
FOOD POISONING.
Section 182 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, requires any medical
practitioner attending on any person, if he suspects or becomes aware that such
person is suffering from food poisoning, to notify the Medical Officer of Heath and
to give particulars of the food poisoning from which such person is suspected to
be suffering.
On the 24th July, I received a notification of a case of food poisoning from
a general practitioner in the Borough, and it was found that four of the five
members of the household had been affected with diarrhoea and abdominal pain.
The four sufferers had eaten on the following day brawn purchased from a local
firm of provision dealers on the 18th July, but the fifth person in the house who had
escaped indisposition, had not eaten any of the meat.
On the 27th July I received information from medical practitioners of a further
twelve persons, members of four households, who were suffering from food poisoning.
It was not possible to obtain specimens of the actual brawn supplied to the
patients as it had all been consumed, but samples of the brawn then on sale in
the shop and of each of the various ingredients used were secured and submitted
for chemical and bacteriological examination.
The five persons engaged in the business were given a medical examination
and specimens of the blood and faeces of five of the patients, the staff at the shop
and a relative of one of the employees who was stated to have had an illness of the
same nature were secured and despatched to the Council's Bacteriologist for
examination. A suspicious circumstance was the fact that the man responsible
for making the brawn had injured his hand with a meat hook on the 15th July
and, although he had his hand bandaged and had treated the wound with
hydrogen peroxide, apparently at the time the patients were infected the wound
was open. The wound was healed on the 27th July when there was a considerable
scar about lin. in diameter.
The firm at this time discontinued the making of brawn.
On the 28th July further cases were reported to me and upon making enquiries
it was ascertained that seven cases had been reported to the Medical Officer of
Health for Tottenham but no cases had occurred in any other district.