106 



CANNED PROVISIONS. 



and property below. An appeal was taken to 

 the Supreme Court of the United States. 



CANADA, DOMINION OF. See DOMINION OF 

 CANADA. 



CANNED PROVISIONS. Their Wholesomeness. 

 The question whether danger may arise in the 

 use of canned provisions, from formation of poi- 

 sons by action of the acids on the tin or solder, 

 lias excited much attention. Frequent allega- 

 tions have been made of persons consuming 

 canned provisions haying been seriously and 

 even fatally injured by poisons thus developed ; 

 but in no case does the action or even the exist- 

 ence of such a poison appear to have been estab- 

 lished with certainty. It appears, on the other 

 hand, to be decided, upon the testimony of 

 manufacturers, chemists, and physicians whose 

 knowledge and integrity are beyond question, 

 that when sound provisions are used, and prop- 

 er care is exercised in selecting the material for 

 the cans and soldering them, the consumption 

 of goods thus preserved is absolutely safe. The 

 possibility of danger can arise only from the use 

 of provisions that have begun to decay, or of 

 inferior or adulterated material in the cans, or 

 from carelessness in the soldering. The question 

 of the extent to which the danger, if there be 

 any^ of poisoning may exist, was investigated in 

 1882 by Prof. S. A. Lattimore, of the University 

 of Rochester, analyst of the New York State 

 Board of Health, who examined a large variety 

 of canned goods, comprising peaches, plums, 

 grapes, strawberries, cherries, blackberries, 

 corn, beans, succotash, tomatoes, pumpkins, 

 and peas, and reported that 



No indication of adulteration was found in any of 

 the canned fruits or vegetables. Attention was given 

 to the possibility of the chemical action of the fruit 

 acids upon the inner surface of the cans, whereby 

 salts of tin and lead might be produced, rendering 

 the contents in some degree poisonous. The appli- 

 cation of the well-known tests of these metals tailed 

 to show any evidence of their presence. Some of 

 the articles examined were canned in the summer of 

 1880. 



Prof. Albert H. Chester, Ph. D., of Ham- 

 ilton College, made examinations of canned 

 meats, and reported also to the New York 

 State Board of Health, saying : 



Many cases have been reported in the papers, where 

 it is alleged that persons have been poisoned by the 

 use of canned meats. I have never been able to ob- 

 tain a sample of the meats which had produced such 

 a result nor have I seen any authentic report of a 

 chemical examination of such meat showing the kind 

 of poison. Many people in the West, particularly in 

 mining and lumber camps, eat canned goods every 

 day of their lives and do not sutfer in consequence. 

 In my own experience I have had gangs of men at 

 work in the woods, frequently months at a time, eat- 

 ing canned corned beef, tomatoes, corn, peaches, and 

 condensed milk every day, without a single case of 

 sickness of any kind during the season. 



The subject has been discussed in the Medico- 

 Legal Society of New York, having been brought 

 before it at its meeting of the 9th of April, 

 1884, by Dr. John G. Johnson, of Brooklyn, 

 who made a report of six cases which had oc- 

 curred in his practice in a family after having 



eaten canned tomatoes at lunch. The symp- 

 toms of the cases were those of violent poi- 

 soning ; not merely of the sickness that would 

 arise from eating damaged pro visions, but symp- 

 toms accompanied by vertigo, coma, convul- 

 sions, and obstinate constipation, indicating 

 the action of some chemically developed toxic 

 agent. The tomatoes were indicated as the 

 medium through which the poison was con- 

 veyed, for only those of the family who had 

 eaten of them were affected. The poison ap- 

 peared to be a substance held in solution, for 

 those were most affected who had eaten of the 

 juice of the tomatoes, while those who had 

 taken only of the firmer parts of the conserve 

 suffered less. Unfortunately, no analyses were 

 made of the tomato- juice or of the evacuations 

 of the patients, so it was impossible to deter- 

 mine what the poison really was. The symp- 

 toms varied from those of lead and of copper 

 poisoning. Pursuing his inquiries, Dr. John- 

 son found that, in soldering on the cap of the 

 can, muriate or chloride of zinc had been used 

 as the amalgam, instead of the resin ordinarily 

 employed. The saturated solution of this sub- 

 stance being applied with the brush after the 

 manner of a paint to the groove of the can, it 

 was supposed that a portion of the acid, hav- 

 ing perhaps dissolved also some of the tin, had 

 run into the can and thus been taken into the 

 liquid portion of the tomatoes ; and the author 

 suggested that the peculiar color of the toma- 

 toes, which he likened to a faded red, might 

 have been produced by the bleaching action of 

 the chlorine in that substance. Dr. Johnson 

 closed his paper with a few rules for avoiding 

 cans in which there was a possibility of the 

 goods having been damaged or having imbibed 

 poisonous matter from the metal or solder, 

 among which were: "Reject every article of 

 canned food that does not show the line of 

 resin around the edge of the solder of the cap, 

 the same as is seen on the seam at the side of 

 the can," and " reject every can that shows 

 any rust around the cap on the inside of the 

 head of the can." Dr. Johnson's views were 

 partially confirmed by Dr. A. W. Ford, of 

 Brooklyn, who followed him with the relation 

 of a case of sickness which he ascribed to the 

 eating of canned apples. He, also r had failed 

 to verify his supposition. 



In opening the discussion on the papers, Mr. 

 Clark Bell, presiding at the meeting, called 

 attention to some cases of alleged poisoning 

 by canned fruits in Glasgow, Scotland, and 

 read from the " British Medical Journal " re- 

 ports of those cases representing that the chemi- 

 cal analyses, made by order of the authorities, 

 had failed to show any poison. Representative 

 men connected with the canning industry in 

 Baltimore and New York were present at the 

 meeting by invitation, and traversed Dr. John- 

 son's conclusions. They admitted that they 

 used the muriate of zinc in soldering the cans, 

 because it was the most feasible and economi- 

 cal amalgam, and insisted that it was so di- 



