POISON IN OUR FOOD. 17 



Wholesome fruit must be carefully selected. To be able to dis- 

 tinguish readily between fruit that is wholesome and healthgiving and 

 fruit that only does injury to the system, is what is everyone's right 

 and duty to discover. Fruit that is ripe is always good. Fruit that 

 is unripe is usually bad. Fruit that has begun to decay is injurious 

 and usually dangerous. It is easy enough to discover the beginnings 

 of decay on apples, pears, peaches, etc. Decay immediately generates 

 ptomaine poisons, and this is almost immediately communicated to the 

 entire piece of fruit. It is no safety to cut off the rotten portion, for 

 all the balance is affected. 



POISON IN OUR FOOD. 



EXTEAOTED FROM UNITED STATES PURE FOOD INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE 



AND OTHER REPORTS. 



An eminent French chemist wrote a book not long ago in which 

 he made a forecast of the time when human beings would cease eating 

 meat or vegetables, and would take all their foods in the shape of 

 compact chemical tablets of diverse flavors. It is possible that the 

 day may come when chemists will be able to manufacture nutritious 

 and wholesome food out of the elements; but if we are to judge the 

 future by the present, it is to be hoped that the era of chemical food 

 may be postponed indefinitely. It has long been known that a very 

 large percentage of our food is more or less adulterated with sub- 

 stances that can be made to resemble it in appearance and flavor, and 

 which are often harmless. If they were all inocuous, the question 

 would be merely one of commercial honesty, competition, and price. 

 But many of them are injurious to health, and therefore call for more 

 vigorous measures. 



As early as 1820, attention was called in England to the dangers 

 of adulterated food through Accum's treatise, " Death in the Pot." 

 In 1851, The Lancet declared war against dishonest manufacturers, 

 printing every week a list of culprits, with chemical analyses of their 

 products; and continued this for three years. Repeated legislative 

 enactment since that time has given the English considerable protec- 

 tion, but that it is still far from complete may be inferred from an 

 article in The Lancet of April 22, 1900, on "Meat Extract of Vile Origin," 

 which shows that such extracts are occasionally made of putrid liver 

 and offal. " It might be thought impossible," it remarks, " that such 

 filthy material could be fabricated into a toothsome paste, but so it is, 

 the use of deodorizers and subtle flavoring materials having been 

 placed at the disposal of offal -mongers by the advances (alas, that it 

 must be so confessed) of chemical knowledge. ... Of course, 

 cooking would destroy most noxious geims, but their products, the 

 poisonous ptomaines, would remain. . . . Their presence in an 

 extract would cause very serious symptoms of poisoning." 



In this country many State legislatures have enacted laws making 

 injurious food adulterations illegal, and Congress has set aside in 



