THE DISTRIBUTION OF SEWAGE IN THE WATERS OF NARRA- 

 GANSETT BAY, WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CON- 

 TAMINATION OF THE OYSTER BEDS/ 



By Caleb Allen Fuller, 

 Assistant in Wisco7isin State Hygienic Laboratory. 



INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON OYSTER INFECTION. ' 



More thau twenty years ag-o attention was called to the fact that 

 o^'^sters and other shellhsh which are eaten raw might be the cause of 

 some of the outbreaks of typhoid fever and cholera which have 

 occurred from time to time in certain coast towns of England and 

 Ireland. Among the first to support this view strongly was Sir 

 Charles Cameron. After examining some oyster beds on the northern 

 shore of Dublin Ba3^ he suggested that "oysters taken from this 

 source were quite as likely to be a source of typhoid infection, as milk 

 or water." He found these oyster beds in a most unhealthy condition. 

 The oysters were sick and died in large riumbei's every year. Inves- 

 tigation of the beds showed them to be "literally bathed in sewage," 

 and the oysters were found to contain sewage matters within the shells. 

 In 1880 he read before the British Medical Association a paper entitled 

 "Oysters and typhoid," in which he called attention to the fact that 

 contaminated oysters might be the cause of these outbreaks of t^yphoid 

 fever and cholera in the coast towns of England and Ireland. 



No special interest was manifested in this statement until, in 

 1893, Doctor Thorne-Thorne, in his report to the local government 

 board for that year, gave it as his opinion that certain sporadic cases 

 of cholera which had occurred at various inland places in England 

 in that j-ear were due to oysters and other shellfish from sewage- 

 contaminated water at Grimsby, where there had been a small outbreak 

 of the disease. Following out Doctor Thorne-Thorne's suggestion, 

 the Government commenced an exhaustive series of investigations, the 

 results of which have appeared in the annual reports of the local 

 government board. This work was carried out under the direction of 

 Doctors Bulstrode and Klein. 



" Thesis submitted to the faculty of Brown University for the degree of Doctor of 

 Philosophy. 



191 



