[Report 1964] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City.

  • Aberdeen (Scotland). City Council.
Date:
1964
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1964] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    admissions rose to a peak on 29th and 30th May and tlien began to decrease; and the “all clear” was given on 17th June, exactly 28 days after the first notifications. Actually, however, there were two distinct phases. Until 25th May the overwhelming majority of patients admitted to hospital (75 per cent, in the early days) had a definite recollection of eating the corned beef, so that health workers had to deal with an apparently limited outbreak which might be controlled on standard lines (e.g. early detection and isolation of cases, surveillance of contacts, seizure of suspected lood, &c.). Subsequent to that date few ot the persons admitted to hospital had eaten sliced corned beef though nearly all had a history of consuming cold meat purchased from the supermarket between 9th and 22nd May. It became clear that various cold meats, cut with the slicing machine used for the corned beef, had become lightly infected in the period 9th to 22nd May; that organisms had multiplied when the meats were stored in an uncooled display cabinet; and that about 35,000 persons who had consumed cold meat bought from the super- market during the crucial fortnight were potentially at risk. It was during this second phase, when the numbers at risk were far too great to be covered by surveillance, that large-scale employment of health education techniques and particularly of mass media became a unique feature of the outbreak. A general description compiled jointly by hospital clinicians, bacteriologists, general practitioners, health visitors and public health medical officers—is likely to be published shortly. The outline that follows deals mainly the public health aspects. I. General Picture. The first patients sickened on 12th May and the earliest hospital admission was on 16th May, but nobody initially suspected typhoid, nowadays a rare disease in Scotland and not easy to diagnose. The first notifications of two suspects—as suspects only—were sent to this Department on Wednesday, 20th May. By midnight on that date twelve patients were in hospital, and interrogation of patients and their relatives by public health medical officers and health visitors revealed three common food factors—milk from a large dairy, ice-cream from a particular shop and cold meat from a supermarket. In addition to questioning and requestioning of patients and their families, normal routine measures were taken on 20th and 21st May (e.g. examination of water and milk, increase of water chlorination, and notification of adjacent medical officers of health and of the Central Department) but in some cases events out- stripped action: for instance, intimations to all general practitioners, health visitors and public health doctors were on the point of being issued on 21st May when the news “broke” in local newspapers and on television, rendering the notices superfluous. On 21st and 22nd May as further patients were diagnosed and interrogated it began to appear that the fact that a number of early victims had consumed milk and ice-cream from the same sources was merely coincidental, and suspicion converged increasingly on the cold meat department of the supermarket. As early