34 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Government Board in March of 1915. Legislation made by 

 lawyers seldom presents any real innovations, and its features 

 are regulated by precedent to a large extent. In this case the 

 form of the regulations was doubtless suggested by a study of 

 the exceptional powers possessed by one borough authority 

 (Blackburn, in Lancashire). They conferred power on the 

 local health authorities to hold inquiry should illness be alleged 

 by the medical officer of health as the result of eating shellfish ; 

 and if the local fishermen were unable to prove that the shell- 

 fish they gathered were free from sewage pollution the local 

 authority could then prohibit the fishing. Mark that proof of 

 the allegation that particular shellfish caused disease need not 

 be given by the local authority closing the fishery, nor need the 

 latter necessarily satisfy themselves that the natural conditions 

 on the layings were dangerous to the public health. The onus 

 of showing that the fishery was free from pollution lay with the 

 fishermen. The local authority was, indeed, directed to make 

 inquiry into the natural conditions of the fishery, but what 

 adequate investigation (for this is always a difficult matter 

 even for the expert) could, as a rule, be made by the ordinary 

 medical officer of health and sanitary inspector of the usual 

 small urban district council ? Note also that bacteriological 

 analyses were deprecated by the Board in their covering in- 

 structions issued with the Regulations. Here we find the result 

 of the confusion generated by the inadequacy of our knowledge 

 of the natural history of intestinal bacteria and the imperfectly 

 developed methods of applied bacteriology. The very complete 

 investigation into the shell-fisheries of England and Wales made 

 by Dr. Bulstrode in 1907 did not include a single bacteriological 

 analysis. Thoroughly sceptical regarding the value of this 

 method, the Inspector made his inquiry on the basis of a 

 topographical survey and an examination of the epidemiological 

 evidence available for the various suspected layings. The 

 Board took the same lines in the preparation of the Regulations. 

 It is quite obvious that bacteriological methods had fallen into 

 disrepute at Whitehall, but surely that ought to have suggested 

 the urgent need for a thorough scientific investigation. No one 

 who has worked at bacteriological analysis and studied, even 

 cursorily, the literature relating to Bacillus colt, B. typhosus 

 and their congeners, or who has considered the question of 

 variability and mutability in bacteria, or that of the criteria 



