CONTAMINATION DANGER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26639, 9 December 1947, Page 4

CONTAMINATION DANGER

WASHING OF FRUIT ADVISED P.A. WELLINGTON, Dec. 8. “ Nothing would be lost by washing fruit as a guard against the spread of infection.” said a high official of the Health Department to-night when a quotation from a Glasgow newspaper advocating the practice was submitted to him. The item was published in the Glasgow Sunday Post on September 9 this year, when infantile paralysis was epidemic in the British Isles. It was headed, “ Infantile Paralysis—Danger in Bought Fruit.” It was a letter to the editor and it read: "I have read that doctors are concerned at the possibility of infantile paralysis being transferred through soft fruit. At present plums and pears are plentiful in the shops, but I hesitate to buy them in case they may be carriers of the disease. Is there any way to disinfect this fruit?” The printed answer by “ The Doc '• read: “ It is perfectly true that doctors suspect that infantile paralysis can be transmitted in this way. Always wasn fruit you buy in a weak solution of Condy’s crystals (permangamate of potash). Make the solution very weak; it should be only the palest pink.” While the New Zealand Health Department officer to which this was referred was not preoared to say whether fruit should be considered suspect or not, it was. he said, always open to contamination by flies and was also usually the subject of considerable handling. Nothing would be lost, therefore, by so washing it. The amount of permanganate of potash needed for a family for the summer would be very much less than loz, h” estimated.