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116
The soup was made in the respective households in the following
manner. Mrs. K. purchased the fowl on Thursday afternoon, 14th
July. She eviscerated it herself at her home and, in accordance
with her normal routine, soaked it in water and treated it with
salt. She then divided the fowl between herself and her daughter,
Mrs. B., who lived a few houses away. So far as Mrs. B. could
remember, she took her parts of the fowl home wrapped in paper,
probably the name paper in which the fowl was first taken to ,
No.16. On Friday, 15th July, both women cooked their parts
of the fowl by boiling in enamel saucepans, with carrots and onions,
for a period of two to three hours. In both households the method
of procedure was very much the same. The fowl was removed
from the soup and the soup left in the saucepan, some of the soup
being eaten at 9 that evening by members of the respective families.
The soup remaining from this meal was left in the saucepan, which
in the case of one family was placed in a ventilated meat safe in
the garden, and in the case of the second family in a cupboard in
the house. On Saturday, 16th July, at 2 p.m., in both houses,
the soup was warmed up and taken by members of the respective
families, every member of both families partaking of soup at this
time. Between 5 and 8 p.m. that day, four members of one family
and two in the other were taken ill with diarrhoea and abdominal
pains, the symptoms persisting throughout the night. They were
seen by their doetor and removed to hospital on Sunday, 17th July.
After their removal to hospital other members of the families
complained of similar symptoms, and on Monday, 18th July, three
further cases were removed to hospital. The remaining members
of the families were removed the following day.
The hospital authorities examined the stools of the patients,
and an organism which not infrequently causes food poisoning, the
B. Aertrycke, was isolated in each case, with the exception of one
patient. It appeared that the food was infected after cooking, as
the organisms could not have survived the boiling to which the
fowl had been subjected. The most likely modes of infection of
food in dwelling-houses by this organism, e.g., through the agency
of mice, rats, etc., were investigated, but without finding evidence
thereof, and the possibility of such infection in two different
premises at the same time was remote.
As is so frequently found in these investigations, it was not
possible to determine with certainty how the chicken broth became
infected, but from all the circumstances it seems probable that the
organism was conveyed to the respective houses in the first place
by means of the fowl, and that infection or re-infection of the soup
occurred through the medium of the hands of those preparing the
soup or of the utensils used.