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114
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 Health and to give particulars of
the food poisoning from which such person is suspected to be
suffering.
Twenty-seven notifications of cases of food poisoning were
received during the year.
In the majority of these cases the illness was a digestive disturbance
of a mild and transient nature, the persons affected being
normal again in a few days. The cause of such digestive disturbance
is frequently difficult to determine, unsuitable or unaccustomed
foods as well as incompatible mixtures sometimes cause a train of
symptoms in the early stages similar to food poisoning and it is only
after close investigation of cases that it is possible to decide whether
the illness is due to food poisoning in the true sense of the term or
to one of the causes above mentioned. One of the greatest difficulties
in many of these investigations is the absence of any of the suspected
foods, but in cases where some has been retained, samples are
obtained and sent to the Council's bacteriologist and/or to the
Public Analyst for examination, as are clinical materials where
necessary.
One outbreak of food poisoning affecting 10 persons, members
of two related families residing in two houses in the same road,
occurred during July. The houses were visited immediately,
information was obtained from some of the patients awaiting
removal to hospital, and samples of available foods were taken and
submitted to chemical and bacteriological examinations.
The foods said to have been taken by persons affected included
boiled fowl, chicken soup, chopped chicken liver, boiled halibut,
fried plaice, fried herring, boiled shin of beef, salad, rice, eggs
and fruit. These foods were eaten on Friday and Saturday, 15th
and 16th July, some of the persons partaking of all the foods, and
others of only some of them. The times of taking meals also
varied.
By tabulating the various foods, times of eating, methods of
preparation, onset of symptoms and other relevant information
(see table following), it became reasonably apparent that the illness
of the patients could be attributed to the chicken soup taken on
the Saturday, the soup being the only food taken in common by
those affected, and this was further emphasized in that the soup
was the only one of these foods taken by one of these persons, an
elderly woman, who was very badly affected.