The Prescott daily news., 1914-05-23
OYSTERS AND TYPHOID FEVER

There are seasons of the year when the instances of infection with the or ganlsm of typhoid fever can be trac- ed to their source. The greater out breaks are usually due to infected water, milk or other foods, while the smaller groups and isolated cases can best be explained by contact infection. The carrier has been shown to be the link between hitherto unconnected cases. For many years no form of air infection (eXcept dust) has been said to be a cause of typhoid, and re- ports of outbreaks of dust-borne ty- phold fever in the Spanish and Boer wars and in India are based on the tlimsiest evidence.
 We have not forgotten the ubiqui- tous horse-fly as a frequent carrier of disease, says The Journal of the Amer ican Medical Association. In many of our states, however, insects of this type are excluded as effective agent of infection because of the climate dur ing the colder months of the year. so that We cannot fall back on the convenient hypothesis of "transmis- sion by flies" Ever since Conn's re- port indicating the occurance of cases of typhoid fever in epidemic form as the result of the use of oysters con- taminated with sewage, there has been growing tendency to attribute the origin of much of the winter typhoid fever in certain districts to sewage polluted bivalves.
 It Is time to ascertain whether this attitude toward the oyster is justified by the facts. Oysters are a highly prized article of diet wherever they are obtainable. Despite the increas- ing enforcement of rigid regulations concerning the vending oysters that are free from pollution according to the standards of such representative bodies as the Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Department of Ag- riculture and the Rhode Island She'll Fish Commission, the prejudice against this food product has, justly or unjustly, increased in many quar- ters. To consider only the alleged responsibility of the oyster in the causation of winter typhoid, we may ask what it's habits are at this sea- son. Gorham has shown that during cold weather oysters rest or hibernate; movement ceases and feeding does not occur, and the oysters become prac- tically free from sewage organisms, even when lying on sewage polluted beds.
 As such facts seem to throw some doubt on the wisdom of attributing winter typhoid to the oyster, Joseph has made bactel'iologic study of the oysters sold in Baltimore. The aim of this investigation, conducted in the Laboratory of Hygiene and Bac- teriology at the Johns Hopkins Uni versity, was to ascertain whether the oysters sold in one of the most pro- minent markets for these products in the United States contain typhoid or ganisms derived from the intestinal tract, and whether their content varies with the seasons of the year.
 The bacterial finding indicate that the oysters sold in Baltimore are in general free from sewage contamina- tion. Those few lots that would be condemned by the most rigid stand ards were obtained at times of the year when the weather was quite warm-a fact of no little significance in view of the tendency to prolong the oyster-eating season beyond the limits of the colder month. One of the most striking points brought out was the distinct change in the character of the oysters, according to the time of the year. Tn the early fall the scores were high, in the cold weather of midwinter low, and again high in the spring. On no occasion were the bac- teria which cause typhoid found.
 -O--