8 SEWAGE-POLLUTED OYSTEES AS CAUSE OF TYPHOID. 



(7) One of the most recent typhoid epidemics due to infected 

 shellfish is reported by Soper, 1 1905, at Lawrence, Long Island, N. Y, 

 His investigations showed that 21 out of 31 cases were traced to 

 eating oysters and clams which had been floated or grown in polluted 

 waters in Jamaica Bay, near Inwood, L. I. 



Of the oysters examined bacteriologically during November, 1904, 

 20 per cent showed B. coli in 0.1 cc of shell liquor, and 60 per cent 

 in 1 cc quantities. According to present methods of scoring oysters 

 in the shell, they would show only 4 points, yet they were consid- 

 ered to have come from badly polluted waters. 



In reading Soper 's account of this outbreak, there are seen to be 

 many points in common with the Minisink epidemic to be con- 

 sidered in this report. The author concludes by saying: 



Your board has as much legal right to regulate the purity of shellfish as to regulate 

 the purity of milk. One is quite as important as the other. It is, in fact, your duty 

 to exclude from sale, in the village over which you have jurisdiction, all oysters, 

 clams, and other shellfish which are liable to cause disease. 



I positively believe you will find small difficulty in accomplishing this end if 

 you will act with firmness, moderation, and tact. It is to the interest of honest 

 oystermen to afford you opportunities for inspecting their methods of cultivating 

 and handling the shellfish and taking samples of the same for analysis. 



In the event of your finding shellfish which are unsuitable for food in your ter- 

 ritory, you have the legal right to forbid their sale, and, if necessary, destroy them, 

 without any compensation to the owners. 



Under the circumstances which exist at present, I think you would be justified 

 in excluding from the village of Lawrence all oysters and other shellfish which have 

 been taken from Jamaica Bay within the influence of the Arverne sewers or from 

 the cove at Inwood, which receives the sewage of Far Rockaway. 



This warning, given nearly eight years ago by a competent au- 

 thority, was apparently not heeded; hence the opportunity to study 

 another epidemic of typhoid fever, the present one at Goshen, due 

 to eating oysters from the same locality. 



(8) In presenting his thesis on the contamination of oysters, 

 Fuller 2 reviewed the literature on this subject, which covered more 

 than 20 separate outbreaks of typhoid fever due to infected shellfish. 



(9) In speaking of the public health of Portsmouth, England, for 

 1907, when 233 cases of typhoid fever were reported. Dr. Fraser 3 

 says: 



The one article of diet which in this town has a special relationship to typhoid 

 fever is shellfish, and during last year no fewer than 80 persons, or 34 per cent of the 

 total number attacked, contracted typhoid from this source * * *. 



It seems that the only thing that can be depended upon to stop this loss of life is 

 legislation making it illegal to collect shellfish from any places certified by local 

 medical officers to be subject to sewage pollution. Otherwise men are sure to collect 



1 Soper, George A. Report of a sporadic outbreak of typhoid fever at Lawrence, N. Y., due to oysters. 

 (Med. News, Feb. 11, 1905, 86: 241-253.) 



2 Fuller, C. A. The distribution of sewage in the waters of Narragansett Bay, with special reference 

 to the contamination of oyster beds. (In U. S. Bureau of Fisheries Kept., 1904, pp. 189-238.) 



a Fraser, A. Enteric fever and shellfish. (Public Health, London, 1908, M (2): 53-54.) 



