MICE AND HIDDEN DEATH

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 August 1928, Page 3

MICE AND HIDDEN DEATH

A FOOD POISONING CASE. It is suggested that bacilli capable of being carried by mice may have caused an outbreak of food poisoning which resulted in the death of two children, and made 39 other persons seriously ill at Wigan, England. The victims, Gladys Duckworth, aged two, and Annie Duckworth, six, the daughters of a collier, and 34 other people ate some brawn. All were seized with illness, and the two children died. Five other people who ate some pressed pork purchased from the same shop were also taken ill, but recovered. It was stated at the inquest that

the cause of the illness was the bacillus aertrycke. Dr Whitehead, medical ofiicer of health, stated that mice were the carriers of this particular organism, which was the ' commonest form of food poisoning, and there were mice in the shop from which the food was bought. He mentioned that the presence of the bacillus made not the slightest difference to taste or smell, and it was impossible to detect it except by a bacteriological examination. A verdict of deafly by misadventure, through eating brawn containing the bacillus aertrycke, there being no evidence to show how it became contaminated, was returned by the jury.