The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1884-09-04
Death In the Salad Bowl and Ice
Cream Freezer.

VI luc Va PuahoSC, iOCoICO oL
this place, including President Jacobs
and the matron and teachers, we're pois.
oned and made desperately sick by eat.
ing for dinner on last Saturday some
stale custard which had been prepared
the day before for ice cream. ALI are
better this morning, but still suffering
from the relaxing effects of the cx-
treme sickness of Saturday and Sunday.
President Jacobs and matron, Mrs. Sim.
monton, are suffering more at this time
than any of the others, but they are re.
garded out of danger and will soon be
themselves again.
It seems that it is about time for our
chemists and doctors to have facts suffi.
cient to base some wholesome rules in
regard to what we shall, or shall not eat.
A few years ago, Judge Graham's family,
in Charleston, were poisoned by eating
roasted fowls, as they thought. The
chickens had been cooked in another part
of the State and sent to Charleston.
Two deaths resulted in that case. Then
last summer we had two noted cases of
ice cream poisoning, as it was called
one in Camden, and the other in Union.
Then we have bad two cases this year in
our State; the first in our own County
and the second at Clinton, in Laurens
County. In the first of these cases the
cause of the sickness is unknown, as
there was a great abundance of meats,
fowls, salads, frozen fruits and ice cream
served. In the Clinton case, the cause
of the sickness was certainly the stale
boiled custard. In the North and West
they have similar experience, but such
occurrences seem more frequent in South
Carolina, than in other States. When
such things occur, all the facts should be
reported to the doctors, so that they may
investigate and ascertain the causes of
poisoning, if possible. 1t is no reflection
on housekeeper, who carefully prepares
a feast and invites her neighbors to help
eat it, thereby making them sick. She
does the best she can with the informa-
ton she has on the subject.
A few suggestions may not be out of
place. It is not safe to take hearty
supper of rich salads and meats and fol-
low this with cake and frozen custard.
It is not every stomach that can stand
such mixture. Either one of these
might be harmless, but the whole taken
at one time might be very injurious.
Boiled custard should always be made
of fresh eggs and, in the summer season
consumed the same day it is made. If
you have more than you need, send it to
your neighbors. There is more economy
in that, than killing yourself eating it
next day when it is curdled or sour.
In warm weather, eggs very soon begin
to undergo decomposition. In the early
stages this is not easily detected as the
egg, when broken, looks almost as we'll
as fresh one. When several of these
eggs are broken and stirred in the milk,
the decomposition continues and goes on
more rapidly because exposed to the air.
Fowls for salad should be used the
same day when killed, unless kept in a
very cool place. 1t is doubtful whether
| it Is safe to use canned meats and fish in
making salads in summer.
The freezers should be thoroughly
cleansed after and before using. When
milk, favored with fresh fruits, is frozen,
there is no danger, and there is no re.
corded case where injury has resulted
from its use and most people like it as
we'll as they do the boiled custard.
The following from the Youths Com.
panion on the subject of decayed food is
worth reading.
There can be no greater difference
than that between life and death. In
life millions of vital processes contribute
to making good the incessant waste that
is going on in the human body, and its
elimination from the system. They con-
tribute to the performance of the body's
many functions; to the repair of possible
wounds; to the expulsion of morbid
agents; and to the perpetuation of its
kind in new individuals. All chemical
and molecular changes mean just this.
These processes are arrested at the
moment of death. Then all chemical
and molecular changes means the decom-
position of the entire substance into
few gases, with a small earthly residum
none of which could in any way particu-
larIy endanger the health of the living.
But as sugar ferments into vinegar, yet
before it reaches the last stage it is q
violent poison (alcohol) this poison is
secured only by arresting the change
so in the process Of animal decay, new
chemical combinations are produced,
and exist for a time, which are exceed
ingly deleterious, whether received into
the stomach or the lungs.
Just here is the danger of decaying
food. It has long been known that the
pravest symptoms have often followed
the eating of custard that has been kept
too long, because the egg in it is liable
to speedy decay. Equally familiar is the
fact that the whole family has often ex-
hibited every symptom of violent poison.
inp soou after rising from dinner of
meat soup.
Chemistry has of late explained these
facts. It has found that, during the early
stages of decomposition, a most virulent
poison is developed. This poison has
been isolated from the mass, reduced to
its purest form, its nature studied, and a
name given it. 1t is just as poison as is
arsenic or strychnine. For this reason
our laws cannot be too stringent, nor our
inspectors too vigilant, in protecting the
people against the sale of bad meat.
The taste of tainted meat may be hidden
in savory soup, but the poison is not
changed.
The eating of decayed fish often gives
rise to severe attacks of cholera morbus.
A young man of our acquaintance lately
died of disease few days after return.
ing from Nantasket Beach, where he had
partaken of dinner of fish.
His symptoms were as violent and his
death as speedy as is common in Asiatic
cholera. An actual poison, as real and
as powerful as arsenic, explains such an
attack.