PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS FOR FOOD. 
507 
PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS BY CANNING. 
DEVELOPMENT AND METHODS OF CANNING. 
The various processes of canning are all directed essentially (1) to preserving 
foods in hermetically sealed vessels from which the atmospheric air has, so far as 
practicable, been driven off, and (2) to destroying by heat or otherwise such germs as 
may be in the food before or after it is sealed up. Heat is applied to destroy the germ 
within the food, and the entrance of other germs or putrefactive organisms is prevented 
by sealing the can. 
The credit for the introduction of this method of preserving foods is shared between 
a Mr. Soddington, who in 1807 presented a description of his process to the English 
Society of Arts, under the title “A method of preserving fruits without sugar, for 
house or sea stores,”* and Francois Appert, who in 1810 published a book giving 
directions for a process for which he was awarded a prize of 12,000 francs offered in 
the preceding year by the French Government for a method of preserving perishable 
alimentary substances. The methods of Soddington and of Appert were essentially 
the same, and as follows: Glass bottles were filled almost to the top with the food, 
which in some cases was partly cooked, the bottles corked loosely and placed up to 
their necks in tepid water, the heat being gradually raised to a temperature between 
170° and 190° F., and being maintained there for a period varying from 30 to 60 minutes. 
The bottles were then corked securely and allowed to cool slowly in the bath. In some 
cases Soddington filled the bottles with boiling water before sealing, and he recom- 
mended further that the corks be covered and the bottles laid upon their sides, so that 
the hot liquid might swell the corks Based on the erroneous impression that exhaustion 
of the air is the essential feature of preserving foods, a number of methods were soon 
after and have until quite recently been devised for accomiilishing the result. Among 
these methods are the use of air pumps, introducing carbonic acid or hydrocarbon gas 
into the vessel containing the food, etc.; but none of them have come into general use. 
This general process of preservation does not appear to have been very extensively 
employed until the substitution of tin cans in place of glass bottles. These seem 
to have been used first in 1820; and in 1823 a iiatent for them was issued to Pierre 
Antoine Angilbert.t Preserved fish had been placed in tin cans for many years 
previous, but not in the manner known at present as canning. 
In “A treatise on fishing for herring, cod, and salmon, and of curing or preserv- 
ing them,” published in Dublin in 1800, the following method of iireserving salmon is 
noted as being practiced in Holland : 
As soon as the fish is caught they cut off the end of the snout [head] and hang it up hy the tail 
to let the blood flow out as much as possible. A short time after they open its belly and empty it and 
wash it carefully. Then they boil it whole in a brine of white salt, often skimmed. Before it is quite 
* Hassell : Food and its Adulterations, London, 185.5, 432. 
tLetheby : Chemical News (American reprint), 1869, 4, 74. 
