Dr. S. Monckton Copeman's report to the Local Government Board on an outbreak of enteric fever in the borough of Eccles, Lancashire, due to the consumption of ice-cream.

  • Copeman, S. Monckton (Sydney Monckton), 1862-
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. S. Monckton Copeman's report to the Local Government Board on an outbreak of enteric fever in the borough of Eccles, Lancashire, due to the consumption of ice-cream. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/22 (page 9)
    rate, of the five or six other persons who, although residing else- where, were engaged in the making of ice-cream on the ground floor. The residents included the tenant, his wife, his brother, and his son. As sub-tenants he had two men (Italians), and a family (also Italians), comprising father and mother, together with five young children. The residents, therefore, numbered thirteen in all. As the result of examination of the blood of all these persons in the first week of November, 1910, six were found to yield a positive reaction of Widal’s test. Of these residents, the tenant, his brother, and three others made ice-cream in the two rooms described, as also did five other men not living on the premises. Of these five men, one is said to have been at work there for a couple of weeks only prior to October 24th, another appears not to have worked there after the first week in September, while a third is said not to have made any ice-cream “ since the summer.” Rounds of Ice-cream Vendors. With the exception of the tenant of the house and his brother, all these men hawked their ice-cream in certain definite rounds in the poorer parts of Manchester. The tenant and his brother served two rounds in that portion of Eccles which lies south of the railway. The two rounds covered entirely separate areas, with the exception that they usually overlapped in Ellesmere Street. These two men, as a matter of fact, were accustomed to enter Eccles by different routes, one coming by the “ old road ” from Manchester, the other by the “ new road,” which is continued as Regent Street, within the borough boundary. In summer their visits are made daily, but in the autumn and winter on Saturdays and Sundays only, on the former of which days they are said to ply a large trade among the visitors to the numerous football matches played on that day throughout the winter season. The last occasion on which the men, or rather one of them, visited Eccles was on Sunday, October 30th, owing to the fact that ice-cream making at the house in Manchester was stopped by Dr. Niven on November 4th—a most fortunate circumstance for Eccles, in all probability, although Dr. Niven at the time was unaware of the fact that infected ice-cream from this house had been distributed in Eccles as well as in Manchester. Careful sifting of the evidence appears to show that in the majority of cases, at any rate, infection must have dated from Saturday or Sunday, October 22nd and 23rd, or from the Saturday or Sunday a week later (October 29th and 30th). This is shown in the table on p. 5, where the cases of enteric fever are entered in accordance with the date on which they first became definitely ill. It will be seen that the table shows two distinct waves of infection, with an interval between, the waves corresponding roughly to such dates as would permit of an incubation period varying from twelve days to a fortnight. This table also brings out clearly another point of considerable interest, viz., the greater intensity and duration of the second wave.