1903 ] on Civilisation and Health Dangers in Food. 253 



8. No special precaution was taken to prevent hands and im- 

 sterilised vessels from coming in contact with the luke-warm jelly 

 poured into the finished pies. 



All these things, and many others which I need not mention in 

 more detail, indicate numerous sources of pollution which should not 

 be tolerated. Meat or jelly are quite as susceptible to pollution as 

 milk, and a place where such things are exposed should be kept as 

 scrupulously clean as a model dairy, or as an operating theatre. 

 No surgeon would think of passing directly from a post-mortem 

 room, where he had performed an autopsy, to the operating room, or 

 he would expose the person operated upon to dangerous infection. 

 Dead flesh and jelly are far more prone to be affected by bacterial in- 

 fection than living flesh. 



Beneficial Effects of Complete Cooking. 



The only thing which has saved the consumer of pork pies, and 

 other dainties prepared in the pork shop, from even more frequent 

 disasters than have occurred is the sterilisation to which these 

 articles are submitted during the process of cooking. What I say 

 of pork applies also to many other eatables. It is obvious that it is 

 possible by preventive measures to guard against such serious sources of 

 pollution, and thus to prevent the recurrence of such outbreaks as the 

 one in question. A large amount of illness, the source of which is 

 not always so evident, is undoubtedly due to similar pollution of 

 other articles of food, and I have for many years attributed much of 

 the epidemic diarrhoea, so fatal to young children, to contamination 

 by bacilli of the milk identical with or allied to those found in the pies. 



Temperature reached hy the various parts of a Pork Pie during 

 the process of Baking. 



Baking is not so great a safeguard as might be supposed. The 

 pies are, it is true, placed in a very hot oven, the temperature of 

 which is more than sufficient to kill non-sporing bacilli, such as 

 the bacillus enteritidis, in a few seconds. But a pie is so constructed 

 that its central parts are reached but slowly by heat. The pie is 

 surrounded in the oven by hot, comparatively dry air, the rapid 

 evaporation taking place from the surface of the moist crust keeps 

 for a time the temperature of the rest of the pie comparatively low. 

 The meat does not constitute a homogeneous mass, it is separated 

 from the cust by a layer of air, there is also more or less air between 

 the small pieces of meat occupying the centre of the pie. AH these 

 things prevent the rapid penetration of heat. To satisfy myself that 

 these views were not purely theoretical, I have made, with Dr. Howarth 

 and Mr. Cope, observations upon the temperature reached by various 

 parts of pies baked in Mr. Cope's own oven. For the purpose of 

 this experiment Mr. Cope had a certain number of pies prepared in 

 the usual way, and placed in the oven, some at 4.30 p.m. and some 



