1895.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 19 



conclusive force to the oysters as tlie cause of the ty- 

 phoid outbreak. The dates of the outbreak, October 20th 

 to November 8th, plainly point to one source of infection 

 about October 12th. The fact that these two cases of 

 genuine typhoid developed at the same time among the 

 alumni, and that two others appeared also among Yale 

 students, none of whom have had any connection with 

 the three fraternities later than the initiation supper or 

 before that time, plainly demonstrates the initiation 

 supper on October 12th as the time of the infection. At 

 these initiation suppers only one article of food or drink 

 was used by the other fraternities in college and by the 

 people in town in general. That one article of food, the 

 raw oysters (not eaten raw by people in town in general), 

 was learned to come from a place where it was certainly 

 subjected to a probable contamination of typhoid fever 

 from two severe cases of the disease. The use of raw 

 oysters from the same locality elsewhere, has been found 

 at least in one case to have been followed by a similar 

 outbreak as occurred at Wesleyan. These facts taken 

 together leave no possible doubt that the Wesleyan 

 typhoid fever was caused by the oysters in question. 



It must not, however, be inferred that because the lot 

 of oysters supplied at these initiation suppers was in- 

 fected, therefore, that all the oysters from the same lo- 

 cality would be thus infected. The public press has cer- 

 tainly exagerated the condition of affairs. The oysters 

 from the same locality were widely used in Connecticut 

 and doubtless in many cases have been eaten uncooked. 

 There have been, it is true, quite a little typhoid fever 

 in Connecticut during the past month, but it has not been 

 possible thus far to trace very much of it to the eating of 

 raw oysters. The probability is that the oysters fattening 

 in the locality in question would not as a rule be contami- 

 nated, but that it would only be an exceptional condition 

 that would produce the result. It would be necessary 



