At one time there was very great excitement about this question, and a tremendous lot of nonsense was talked about it. Some persons maintained the typhoid bacillus only occurred in bad oysters. We suppose a bad oyster is eaten occasionally, but Lord X.’s guests are not likely to be troubled with bad oysters.
Oysters cannot cause typhoid fever unless they contain this bacillus, and they only obtain it from sewers opening into the sea. Therefore it is only those oysters which have come from places where sewers open into the sea that can cause typhoid fever.
Of course, as soon as the oyster scare was started, everybody who caught typhoid fever attributed it to oysters she had eaten the day, the week, month, or year before. But the incubation period of typhoid fever is from one to three weeks; that means that when the bacilli get into the body they do not produce the disease till from one to three weeks after infection. Therefore it is only oysters eaten from one to three weeks before the onset of the fever that could possibly have caused the disease. As a matter of fact, oysters are a real, but not very common, method by which typhoid is spread.
We notice that one of the three guests who have taken oysters discards one because it is green. He is quite right to do so, for though it may be quite wholesome, it may be coloured with copper. Doubtless it would do no harm, but he is quite right not to risk the possibility of sickness for an oyster!
Amongst the other items of the luncheon we notice cold beef and salad. These will furnish us with material for discussion, for there are several very important medical points in connection with both.
Cold meat is a very good food in its way, but like all meat it is a strong food, that is, it is readily digested and furnishes a very large amount of nourishment. If you make a meal entirely of beef, you will not suffer from indigestion, because beef is very digestible, but you will eat too much, you will throw too much nourishment into the blood, and you will give your organs, especially the liver and kidneys, great trouble to dispose of the superfluous nourishment.
Although a cold joint of beef seems so much less rich and strong than the same joint hot, it is really very much the same in the amount of nourishment that it contains. People very rarely serve hot meat without vegetables and surroundings, but it is the fashion to serve cold meat by itself, with nothing but bread, and most persons eat very little bread indeed with their meals.
Meat should never be served alone. Vegetables of some sort must be served with both hot and cold meat, and far more vegetable and less meat than is usually served should be your aim.
Salad is of course a vegetable or vegetables, and if properly prepared and selected, it is not at all a bad form of food.
We do not suppose many of you know much of the mysteries of agriculture, for if you did, such a thing as an unwashed salad would never appear upon your tables. Salads are not washed half enough, and an unwashed salad is a most dangerous article of food. All vegetables are best when rapidly grown, and to grow vegetables rapidly it is necessary to supply them with strong manures.