Outbreak Of Salmonella Infection (1954)

[Music] this is Captain Kimberly our medical officer and these are some of our men eating their evening meal as usual at the end of another routine day yes everything seems to be going well just another day but believe me what followed turned out to be anything but routine this meal is the beginning of our story a story that developed during the night and continued for several days during the early part of the night we all went about our duties as usual everything was nice and smooth and quiet the way we like to see things run at midnight about 40 of us in the duty section Got A light meal it was just about this time that things were beginning to happen it began like this at first a few of the men who weren't in the duty section got sick more followed suit and just before Dawn most of the men who had the midnight meal join their ranks you never saw such a sick bunch of men in your life and it got steadily worse vomiting abdominal pains and diarrhea it was hard to tell which caused the most trouble one thing is sure the boys were well taken care of some of them at the base infirmary and others at a private Hospital in town [Music] [Music] for a while all we had time to do was bring in the sick and some of them were plenty sick get them in bed and leave them to Captain Kimberly and his assistants [Music] it was pretty rough going for a while vomiting diarrhea cramps headache sweating prostration fever and dehydration yes salmonella can make you plenty sick just as soon as we got the chance to let up and breathe a little we got down to the business of finding the cause of all the trouble naturally we had suspected some kind of food poisoning and so it was look here this is what we found these are salmonella organisms of the species tyy murium which were isolated from a patient stool specimen from the the lapse of time between our patient last meal and the outbreak of illness it was pretty evident that the evening meals were responsible for the presence of the salmonella organisms in the stool specimen in the meantime our laboratory was working on samples of food eaten that night sampling incubating plating transfer and then more incubating laboratory examinations require time and it may take several days to identify the organisms our results showed that the other Foods were okay but the samples of leftover chicken and the gravy reveal the same bacteria as the stool specimens of the p for these two were thoroughly contaminated with salmonella typy murial how and when did the chicken and the gravy become contaminated with the organisms well here's one thing we'll have to assume but it's a pretty safe assumption one or more of these chickens were contaminated by the salmonella organisms on the outside and very likely inside and of course the liver and Gizzard are prime suspects during the cleaning operation this cutting board was undoubtedly contaminated e [Music] after the chickens were put in the oven the giblets were cooked separately on top of the stove and The Cutting Board was clean but water cleaning it got maybe we should just say that the salmonella organisms were more completely distributed over its surface and embedded in the [Music] cracks while the giblets were cooking a white gravy was prepared and then the giblets were taken from the stove thorough cooking had killed the salmonella organisms but this good clean food was recontaminated on The Cutting Board as it was chopped [Music] [Music] [Music] then these recontaminated giblets were put into the gravy [Music] this contaminated gravy was not reheated it was prepared for serving and on the steam table there wasn't enough heat to kill the organisms in fact there is a good chance they began to grow [Music] the story was much the same with the chicken heat killed the salmonella organisms in the oven but again the unclean cutting board contaminated the safe chicken meat as it was carved for serving [Music] [Music] [Music] there wasn't much delay in getting the chicken served [Music] and between the gravy and the chicken we can account for the men who were sick around midnight or soon after those acute cases that occurred later form another chapter in our story here's how the next chapter goes food left over from the evening meal was saved for the midnight meal and here in this lukewarm steam table the salmonella organisms continued to grow and to make matters worse The Cutting Board contributed a new bunch of organisms as the leftover chicken was prepared for serving so that by the time the midnight meal was served the Chicken allaha King was supporting large numbers of salmonella organisms enough to make the men on the night watch so violently ill what could have prevented this sickness and suffering we couldn't know that the chickens were infected look here this is a detergent this is hot water this is a brush these are hands put them together use them and get a clean cutting board with all the troublemakers washed off a good scrubbing immediately after the raw chicken was prepared would have gotten rid of the salmonella organisms of course this applies to our hands and anything else that might be contaminated by contact with the fowl we made some other mistakes too the leftover chicken should have been put into the refrigerator as soon as possible and the gravy it was cooked before the contaminated giblets were added thorough cooking after they were added would have killed the salmonella organisms the airbase mes Hall accommodated the men in three ships of approximately 150 at a time out of some 450 regular Personnel 173 became infected with salmonelosis of which 84 were seriously ill enough to be hospitalized all affected complete recovery and we're back on duty within several days to about two weeks [Music]