Report of Experiments and Observa- 

 tions on the Vitality of the Bacillus 

 of Typhoid Fever and of Sewage 

 Microbes in Oysters and other 

 Shellfish. 



By E. KLEIN, M.D., F.R.S., 



Lecturer on Advanced Bacteriology in the Medical School of 

 St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. 



ALREADY in 1893 the then Medical Officer of the Local 

 Government Board, Sir Kichard Thorne, in his Summary 

 (Keporfcs and Papers on Cholera in England in 1893, Local 

 Government Board) makes the following trenchant remarks 

 on page 29, in reference to a number of cholera attacks in 

 which the history pointed to infection by means of oysters 

 and shellfish which had been procured from, and specifically 

 fouled at Cleethorpes and Grimsby, viz. : " But one thing 

 is certain, oysters and shellfish, both at the mouth of the 

 Humber and at other points along the English coastline, are 

 at times so grown and stored that they must of necessity be 

 periodically bathed in sewage more or less dilute ; oysters 

 Jiave more than once appeared to serve as the medium for 

 communicating disease, such as enteric fever, to man; and 

 so long as conditions exist such as those with which the 

 oyster trade of Cleethorpes and Grimsby is shown to be 

 associated, conditions which may at any time involve risk 

 of the fouling of such shellfish with the excreta of persons 

 suffering from diseases of the type of cholera and enteric 

 fever, so long will it be impossible to assert that their use 

 as an article of diet is not concerned in the production of 

 disease of the class in question." 



B 2 



M374361 



