THE MINISINK EPIDEMIC. 19 



The celery served at the banquet was grown about 4.5 miles from 

 Goshen on the same farm and was furnished from the same lot as that 

 used at the St. Elmo Hotel and the Methodist Church on October 5. 

 No illness occurred at either of those two places. There were 6 of the 

 17 ty])hoid cases and 17 of the 83 diarrhea cases, or 23 of the 100 per- 

 sons made ill, who did not eat celery, and 11 people who ate celery 

 and oysters who were not sick; thus celery was not the source of the 

 difficulty. 



ICE CREAM. 



The ice cream served w^as manufactured at a factory located between 

 Goshen and Middletown, N. Y. From this same lot was also fur- 

 nished that used at the St. Elmo Hotel and the Methodist Church on 

 October 5, where no illnesses occurred. There were 9 guests who did 

 not eat oysters; however, they did eat ice cream, but no illness re- 

 sulted, while 4 of the typhoid cases, and 7 of the diarrhea cases, or 11 

 guests did not eat ice cream, but all of them did eat ^^Rockaway" 

 oysters. This evidence shows that the ice cream was not the cause 

 of the illnesses following the banquet. 



OYSTERS ON THE HALF SHELL, 



With two exceptions, all of the people who had typhoid fever or 

 diarrhea following the Minisink banquet on October 5, 1911, ate raw 

 oysters served on the half shell. One of the two exceptions was a 

 lady who had worked hard that day preparing for the banquet and 

 at night suffered from 'indigestion,'' which attacks were not uncom- 

 mon with her. She did not eat oysters. The other case of illness 

 began two weeks later, and was called ^'biliousness.'' It is reason- 

 able to believe that among 155 people there would be at least one or 

 two who would have some intestinal derangement following an ordi- 

 nary banquet, even if no infected food were served. 



The oysters for this banquet were furnished by a local retail 

 merchant, designated dealer C. There were ordered for this occasion 

 1,000 oysters, to serve 6 oysters per plate for 160 guests, with instruc- 

 tions that they should be freshly shucked at the store and delivered 

 to the banquet hall out of the shell. It was intended to place the 

 shucked oysters on shells before serving, and the shells used were 

 taken from the same lot of shell stock which was opened at the store 

 and sold to the banquet. As the oysters were opened, the empty 

 shells were thrown into an empty 03^ster barrel, in which container 

 they reached Music Hall ; thus fresh o}- ster shells were used at the 

 banquet, and, contrary to unfounded reports, no stale shells were 

 used on this occasion. The dealer explained that the shells of all 

 former oysters had been discarded and hauled away by farmers, 

 who sought them eagerly for poultry food. 



