Occurrence of Bacterium Coli of Intestinal Origin on Hands of Food Handlers

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to show something of the frequency of the occurrence of Bacterium coli of intestinal origin on the hands of food handlers in restaurants, cafes, lunch counters, sandwich shops and soda fountains. The problem was suggested by seeing two waiters at a lunch counter in a hotel pass back through the lobby of the hotel to the men's room, visit the commodes, and return to the lunch counter without washing their hands. The first duty performed by one of the waiters after returning to the lunch counter was to hand a customer an unwrapped sandwich. This investigation was made in the public eating places of Waco, Texas, which has a population of about 45,000. On casual inspection the general sanitary conditions of public eating places here appear as good as those in the average American town of this size. Such places are inspected and scored monthly, or oftener, by the city health department. All the tests on the hands of the food handlers were made between 8:00 and 10:00 o'clock in the morning. Materials and Methods.?Dehydrated culture medium preparations from the Digestive Ferments Company were used: lactose broth, 13 grams per liter of distilled water; Levine's eosin methylene blue agar; and nutrient agar, IJo, for the agar slants. Koser's 1 sodium citrate medium was used for distinguishing the Bacterium coli of intestinal origin from that of vegetable origin.2 All mediums were sterilized for twenty minutes at fifteen pounds pressure, the tin plates were sterilized by dry heat at 170 C. for two hours, and all incubations were at 37.5 C. A modification of the Bacterium coli test method in bacteriologic water analysis was used as described in Standard Methods of Water Analysis, published by the American Public Health Association.3 The