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78
One outbreak of food poisoning reported in 1938 affected ten
persons, members of two related families residing in two houses
in the same road. The houses were visited immediately upon
receipt of the notification, 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
examination. By tabulating the various foods consumed by the
patients, times of eating, methods of preparation, onset of symptoms
and other relevant information, it was reasonable to assume
that the illness of the patients could be attributed to some chicken
soup which was the only food taken in common by those affected,
and support for this assumption was given by the fact that the
soup was the only one of the suspected foods taken by one of these
persons, an elderly woman, who was very badly affected.
The hospital authorities examined the stools of the patients,
and 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 seemed 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.
Despite the fact that food poisoning is notifiable, not all cases
are reported to the Public Health Department, for in many instances
the symptoms are of a mild and transient nature, the persons
affected being normal again within a few days so that unless the
illness is a serious one or, in the case of a wage-earner necessitates
staying away from work, medical advice is not sought. Similarly,
unless a number of persons are affected from one particular source,
such as a school or works canteen, the outbreak often does not
come to the knowledge of the department.
Whilst the Public Health Department has ample powers to
deal with food apparently unfit for human consumption and,
obviously, food repugnant to smell or taste would not be eaten,
great difficulty is experienced in preventing food which, although
otherwise wholesome, has become bacterially infected from reaching
the public.