54 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



become quite common. Altliough it may be possible that in some 

 instances the ill effects result from metallic poisoning, in a great 

 majority of cases the poisonous substances are formed by putre- 

 factive changes. In many cases it is probable that decomposition 

 begins after the can has been opened by the consumer; in others 

 the canning is imperfectly done, and putrefaction is far advanced 

 before the food reaches the consumer. In still other instances 

 the meat may have been taken from diseased animals, or it may 

 have undergone putrefactive changes before the canning. It 

 should alvi^ays be remembered that canned meat is especially liable 

 to putrefactive changes after the can has been opened, and when the 

 contents of the open can are not consumed at once the remainder 

 should be kept in a cold place or should be thrown away. People 

 are especially careless on this point. While every one knows that 

 fresh meat should be kept in a cold place during the summer, an 

 open can of meat is often allowed to stand at summer temperature 

 and its contents eaten hours after the can has been opened. This 

 is not safe, and has caused several outbreaks of meat poisoning 

 that have come under the observation of the writer. 



Milk Poisoning. — In discussing this form of food poisoning we 

 will exclude any consideration of the distribution of the specific 

 infectious diseases through milk as the carrier of the infection, 

 and will confine ourselves to that form of milk poisoning which 

 is due to infection with nonspecific, poison-producing germs. In- 

 fants are highly susceptible to the action of the galactotoxicons 

 (milk poisons). There can no longer be any doubt that these poi- 

 sons are largely responsible for much of the infantile mortality 

 which is alarmingly high in all parts of the world. It has been 

 positively shown that the summer diarrhcea of infancy is due to 

 milk poisoning. The diarrhoeas prevalent among infants during 

 the summer months are not due to a specific germ, but there are 

 many bacteria that grow rapidly in milk and form poisons which 

 induce vomiting and purging, and may cause death. These dis- 

 eases occur almost exclusively among children artificially fed. It 

 is true that there are differences in chemical composition between 

 the milk of woman and that of the cow, but these variations in 

 percentage of proteids, fats, and carbohydrates are of less impor- 

 tance than the infection of milk with harmful bacteria. The child 

 that takes its food exclusively from the breast of a healthy mother 

 obtains a food that is free from poisonous bacteria, while the bottle- 

 fed child may take into its body with its food a great number and 

 variety of germs, some of which may be quite deadly in their 

 effects. The diarrhoeas of infancy are practically confined to the 

 hot months, because a high temperature is essential to the growth 



