OYSTERS AND TYPHOID.

Otago Witness, Issue 2928, 27 April 1910, Page 36

OYSTERS AND TYPHOID.

FURTHER EVIDENCE AGAINST THE OYSTER. (From Oue Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, April 22. The Post quotes the telegram I sent you the other day giving a medical expert's opinion that the recent outbreak of typhoid was, in his opinion, almost certainly due to the eating of infected oysters. The Post, adds that Dr Makgill, Government Bacteriologist, sanctioned the use of Ballena Bay for the storage of oysters. The beds have been improved recently. The extension of the city drainage scheme has largely reduced the effluent into Evan's Bay, but sotme water from domestic sinks still gets into the bay. Typhoid has not made any headway in Wellington since the last slackening off was reported. The few cases are scattered, and the causes have not definitely '-">?»ti traced. It may be mentioned that u possible for a typhoid patient to be a carrier of germs for years after he has regained his health. The theory is that the bacilli lodge in the gall bladder, from which they .may find their way at long intervals to the outer world. Observation, however, shows that only about two persons become germ carriers out of every 100 who contract the disease. The above explanation will not be very satisfactory to the Wellington man who! has been eat mg oysters lately. There is, as a matter of fact, moire than "the water from domestic sinks" going into Evan's Bay, and it is a certainty that a better place for the oyster beds could be obtained. It is a curious fact that, though the authorities state that the epidemic is not confined to one locality, in four recent cases here—one of which ended fatally—the patients were members of a club at which uncooked oysters frequently appear on. the menu. The authorities in the south recently made the oyster trade shift the beds at the Bluff, and it seems as if something should be done here. In further confirmation of the views 1 have expressed and the medical opinion I have quoted—which, by the way, is a high one, —I quote the following later bulletin from to-night's Post: —" Information received by the District Health Officer this morning from the Wellington Hospital is to the effect that seven elf the eight typhoid patients accommodated there have stated that they consumed oysters recently. The proportion of cases associated with the eatimg of oysters by comparison with the number of persons in the habit of swallowing raw casters tends to confirm the Health Department's suspicion that oysters have bee a at fault. There is no definite information at present, however, to unmistakably indicate the locality in which the Stewart Island oysters absorbed the typhus germs. Dunedin has had the most extensive outbreak of typhoid recorded there for the past 10 years; and Christchurch has had some cases. Efforts are being made to) discover the source of infection. The boiling of oysters will destroy any typhoid bacilli harboured by them."

In further confirmation of the suggestion that something should be done in regard to Evan's Bay, I now learn that before the four cases above referred tof occurred a patient at Evan's Bay suffered from a virulent form of typhoid, and died somewhat suddenly after a severe hemorrhage of the boweis. If sewage is allowed

to bo into' a bay under such, circumstances,ana there are oyster beds in that bay, it' behoves people who* eat the oysters to sea that they are at all events well oooked. It would, of course, be better still if the authorities took prompt and drastic preventive measures. Meantime, there may, be a slwmp in the oyster trade. A local fishmonger from whom I have made inquiries tells me that the retailers' have no option in the matter. They can cVily get their oysters from ihe one agentJ Some- time ago he himself complained? about the oysters being deposited in Evan's Bay, and pointed out that in the event of infection there would be a losa to the trade.