HEALTH NOTES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1798, 22 August 1906, Page 16

HEALTH NOTES

FOOD POISONING IN SUMMER. (By Dr Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E) I think it well on the advent of the •warm season of the year to renew the ■warnings which I have given in previous years concerning special dangers which may be said to await ns when summer comes. Shell warnings may m the first place be detailed respecting the foods we eat. These are extremely liable to undergo injurious changes on account of the hot weather causing a very rapid multiplication of those germs or microbes which exercise an injurious and noxious influence upon certain articles of diet. You will have noted that it is in the hot season of the year that reports of oases of food poisoning become more frequent in the newspapers. In the colder season such cases do not occur, or ait least are extremely rare. Heat in all cases favours germ growth, and when we speak of any food which goes rapidly to decay and putrifies in the hot weather of summer we must really attribute that result not to the heat itself, but to the effect the heat has in causing the germs, which are really the sources of the decay, to breed and multiply to an extreme degree. SOME EXAMPLES. It is noiv known that certain species of germs are specially connected with cases of food poisoning, and it is also pretty certain that some classes of foods more readily than others are liable to he contaminated by them. For example, pork and ham are foods that we must regard, if not with suspicion, at least with particular care in respect of their consumption in the hot season of the year. The reason that pork is more liable than beef or mutton to act as a breeding ground for microbes is probably to be found in the fact that it contains a larger proportion of gelatine than other meats. My readers will have a vivid recollection of more than one case of pork pie poisoning. In the same way rabbit, and probably fish must receive special care in the hot season because of their greater liability to be affected by injurious germs than say beef or mutton. Food must be kept in a cool and cleanly place in summer, and when I speak of food I must not neglect to include milk .especially in the category of articles demanding our care. THE CAUSES. If absolute cleanliness be attended to there is little risk indeed of food poisoning occurring. The word cleanliness here applies not only to the food itself, which I am supposing has been bought in a sound and perfect condition, but to the surroundings in which the food is kept. As a rule, cases of food poisoning can be traced to some contact or otiter of the food with germs arising from either sewage matter or waste of like description. We know, as a matter of sad experience, that if foods be kept in places through which drains run, as for example in cellars, they will be extremely liable in the summer time to become contaminated and to cause food poisoning. In the same way tinned meat or tinned fish which has been sound enough when the tin was opened has caused poisoning because wbat was left of the food was allowed to remain in some place or other such as a scullery, and near a sink or closet. We may conceive, indeed, that in summer the germs which are liable to cause food poisoning are plentiful around us. It is only, however, when they get a chance of fixing upon our foods through these being placed, as I have shown, in what I may call filthy surroundings that they produce in the foods the poisonous substances that make us very ill or may cause death itself. FURTHER DETAILS.

The records of health science are full of examples of food poisoning cases, some of them of an extremely instructive nature. In this country cheese is very rarely blamed for causing dangerous symptoms, but in America cases of food poisoning from this source are tolerably frequent. Again, it has been held that rabbits’ flesh is singularly liable to be affected by certain plants on which the rabbits feed, and which, whilst not poisonous to the animal, are hurtful to man. I rather incline to think that this latter view is incorrect, and that the real explanation of any cases of food poisoning which may arise from rabbits is that they are really, as other cases are, due to the action upon the flesh of noxious microbes. It is sometimes asked why people eat certain foods of which game is the chief example. These foods practically exist in a state of decomposition and decay. I think an explanation of this fact can be found in what science teaches us, namely, that the first signs of decomposition of the game are produced by noxious and injurious germs such as would undoubtedly cause food poisoning. These in a later stage of things disappear and are succeeded by other germs which are not necessarily injurious. In other words, if the game that is eaten when it is really "high” were to be consumed when the decomposition is just commencing, food poisoning would be very likely produced. PREVENTION". A feature regarding cases of food poisoning which is most regrettable is that some foods apparently sound have been known to produce dangerous symptoms, and there seems to be no means of detecting the presence in such foods of injurious principles. The great means of prevention, as T have said, is to keep all foods in a pure cool atmosphere, far away from any risk of contamination from drains. In the case of tinned foods they should be consumed as quickly as may be after the tin has been opened, and it may be well to remark here also that food next the tin should not be consumed, nor should any jelly e. ntained in the tin of meat or tongue be eaten. These precautions may a».-« us if

not in absolutely preventing food poisoning at least in minimising ou: risks.