POISON RIDDLE SOLVED

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 42, 13 November 1920, Page 14

POISON RIDDLE SOLVED

DEADLY GERM IN FOOD

THE COOK AN UNCONSCIOUS "CARRIER"

Purely accidental, according to the finding of the Westminster coroner, was a seusiLtiomil food poisoning affair, which caused the death of Georges Nicholas Koebele, 31, a French correspondence clealc, and affected eight other ipersons in the same household, At the opening of the inquiry it was suggested by the Lambeth medical officer ot health that Mrs. Hipsey, the mothdr of tlio family, who cookcd all the meals of which the people partook was an "unconscious "carriei of (he bacillus which caused tho mischief, and had communicated the disease to the others by infecting the gravy oi some liver, while enraged in ■ cooking. This view now received support from Dr. Harry Schutze, bacteriologist at the Lister Institute, to whom various articles of food and also organs of the dead man had been ('submitted for 'examination. •He explained that he had succeeded in isolating a micro-organism associated with food 1 poisoning, and known as the."mutton type of Paratyphoid B." The deduction . he drew was that at some stage the food had been infected, and the illness passed oh, but he could not say definitely at what stago. tho infoction occurred. although it wns apparently from Mrs. Hipsoy. People might carry tho germ for any length of time, and a person having this micro-organism in her system might easily infect food by hand'ling it. unless very great cleanliness was observed. The microbe would be killed' at a temperature of 18-lileg,. Fahr. Assuming the gravy to have been infected by the person handling it ho would expect proper cooking to destroy the germ, but if the irravy were touched.again,after the temperature had {alien it might again be infectcd by the touching of the basin. ' Dr. John Braxton Hicks, pathologist at Westminster Hospital, deposed that h» had not up to. the present been able to establish by what particular method the organism got in. He now had Mrs. Hipnev and her daughter I'V'eitiei "i>iier "i----servation, but had found no signs of a pathogenic organism in the former at all. .This'rather pointed to her. having had an attack from which she'was recovering, and ithat she was not a true "carrier." Felicitic, who had been.an invalid all liar life, might havo been a carrier, but he could find-no evidence that sba was one. ... Dr. Joseph Priestley mentioned tmat Aire. .Hip&oy had. been ill two days bofore the others, but, being ,1 very plucky woman, did not go to bed, and kept about doing her work, • including the cooking. He was rather inclined to think that tlio attack of two of tlio victims was duo to actual direct contamination from Hipsey, on Uie ground that they had" looked after her when' she was taken ill but on reviewing the evidence more carefully h& 11 ner-..- " adopt "was that there "iras a double, infection. Ho was absolutely clear in his own •mind that thfe food had 'been ranto}"")ated. With tho evidence of Folicitles illness before him he could not- very well dec-idet that >" r '' but if she did that would not make anj difference, because the mother miected all tlie otih.ers. lie was of opinion that Mrs. Hipsey was a carrier m the bat tf/rloloffical 6GDSC. r » . Coroner: Dr. Braxton Dicks does not agree with you. He thinks she is not a tr Dr. C Pricstiey: I hope lie will be right. He added that 110 blame whatever was to be attached' to Mrs. Hipsey. # The coroner.described it as an interesting important, and remarkable case. It wm SifTing to find how immediately steps w" re tafen by Dr Priestley to by and' find out what , was the cause: ofthib dangerous infection. The wa> in _whit a civilised country like &i'wt Brita « defended.itself against imqrobe. ' >«> remarkable. Dr. Priestley and his ns sistants. the, ai^ Initiate at oncc sot to work, and. tnej had sicccede<l in running this organism to earth, j" The lister Institute lw,d found tho «erm in the gravy, and what was more" remarkable, those ot the sunn not the germ were found-to have anti-bodies that B "acked the same eevm There was no doubt at all that She was a competent housekeeper a nice Gorski of Westminster Hospital, and all concerned, for setting to work and sohijL; It was just an accidental infed on of food by a subtle, dangerous micro-organism. He recorded a verdict of death from gastric-enteritis I>j food poisoning misadventure. ■