EXAMINATION OF SHELLFISH 245 



Attention was first drawn to the danger from shell- 

 fish by the remarkable outbreak of typhoid fever which 

 occurred in Middletown, Conn., in 1894, as a result 

 of the serving of raw oysters at college fraternity 

 banquets. The oysters used in this case were all 

 derived from a certain portion of Long Island Sound, 

 where they had been put down, or planted, in order 

 to fatten. Investigation showed that the stream 

 entering the Sound at this point was highly polluted, 

 and furthermore, that at a nearby house there were 

 two severe cases of typhoid fever from which the intes- 

 tinal discharges were turned into the drain and thence 

 into the stream without disinfection. The course 

 of the passage of the bacteria from the patient suffer- 

 ing with the disease to the oyster and so on to the 

 young men at the banquets was, therefore, traced 

 out in a most complete and thorough \vay. This 

 investigation, which was conducted by Prof. H. W. 

 Conn, of Wesleyan University, caused immediate invest- 

 igations to be set on foot in England and in this coun- 

 try. Two years later there followed a report by the 

 Local Government Board of Great Britain dealing 

 with pollution of shellfish along the English coast, and 

 the matter has also received much attention in this 

 country. 



A study of the literature reveals only a few references 

 to oysters as carriers of disease germs previous to 

 1880. In that year Cameron, in a paper entitled 

 " Oysters and Typhoid Fever," read before the British 

 Medical Association, suggested that outbreaks of typhoid 

 fever and cholera might be caused by eating oysters. 



