Report on certain associated cases of enteric fever following Stirling County Ball, on 1st October, 1895 / by A. K. Chalmers ; with a bacteriological report by R. M. Buchanan.

  • Chalmers, Archibald Kerr.
Date:
[1895]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on certain associated cases of enteric fever following Stirling County Ball, on 1st October, 1895 / by A. K. Chalmers ; with a bacteriological report by R. M. Buchanan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    these were in good condition when opened. They were opened, however, and until required, kept, in a small side corridor adjoining one of the principal lavatories, an exceedingly unhappy site to select for such a purpose. Indeed, it would seem that some influence to which they were here exposed rapidly determined putrefactive changes in some of them; for, in several instances, when brought to the table, they were rejected on this condition being recognised. But the risk which attends the consumption of putrescent oysters is that of ptomaine intoxication; while an oyster bathed in liquid containing the germ of enteric fever, may, like milk when similarly poisoned, be bland to the palate, yet virulently poisonous in character. In Stirling during the past autumn there has been little enteric fever among the population. One case of the disease was notified, Dr. Wilson tells me, on 31st August, another on 20th September, a third on 17th October (a gentleman who attended the ball); and there was no other during this month. The halls in which the ball was held are in large demand for concerts and meetings of various kinds, and food has been purveyed on nine of these occasions since August last, being in several instances cooked on the premises. The county ball alone among them was followed by cases of enteric fever, the greater part of the food here being cooked before being despatched from Glasgow. On 14th November information reached me which suggested that the drainage of the halls was defective, and this information I communicated to Dr. Wilson. On an examination of the drainage system being made by Mr. Wallis, Memb. San. Inst.. London, Resident Engineer to the West of Scotland Sanitary Association, structural and other defects therein were found. The present tendency very largely is to discount the power of drain effluvia to cause specific disease. But with defective drain- age there is usually pollution of subsoil, and when once the possibility of this has been establised, the presence or absence of
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