Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-28
POISON IN ICE CREAM.
Over 100 People at Asbury Park
We're Made Deadly Sick by
THE WARN wEATHER'S LUXURY.
An Awful Fate for Young Men to Hold Up
to Their Sweethearts.
NO SOLUTION FOR A GREAT MYSTERY


AsBURY PARK, June 7.-When DR..
Alexander Williamson hurried to the resi-
dence of MI. Simon Wolf, Saturday even
ing, he found Mr.. and Mrs Wolf, and their
three children suffering from q peculiar
sickness for which he could not at first find
cause. Mr.. Wolf and his wife had violent
headache and dizziness, and some nausea.
The children had these symptoms, and also
Q numbness of the legs below the knee, and
Of the hands
Dr.. Williamson gave emetics and stimu-
lants. and found that the symptoms decreased
somewhat before the medicine. Mr. Wolf
told him that as the room was warm he and
his family had eaten some ice cream that
had been delivered during the afternoon.
Dr.. Williamson tasted this ice cream, but
did not observe anything peculiar about it.
During the evening Dr. Williamson and
several other doctors got q number of hasty
calls, as the result of the appearance of the
same symptoms in other families that had
had ice cream for dinner.
Sickness in All the Hotels
As the doctors did not meet, no general
alarm was sent out In fact, none of the
cases were serious, and the doctors thought
whole town was alarmed by the breaking
out Of the sickness in dozen hotels and
boarding houses and nearly 50private houses
This was in the afternoon, just after the
Asbury Park Sunday dinner hour, and so
hasty were the calls that every doctor in the
town was to be seen dashing through the
streets Those who did not get the news in
any other way took the alarm at this, and
soon the whole story was out
In West Asbury Park there is an ice
cream manufacturer, Frederick Kurrus.
He is German. aged 38 years, and for IL
years Asbury Park has known and loved his
ice cream. Friday Kurrus received from
New York, and from his sources of supply
in Asbury Park, several hundred quarts of
cream, which he set to work to freezing for
the supply of his regular Sunday customers,
for ice cream is az much q part of the Sun
day Asbury Park as church and midday
dinner atterward.
Six Kinds Of Cream In 1t.
When Kurrus and his son and several
employees quit work Friday evening, they
had nearly ready six great canisters of ice
cream vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, peach,
lemon and pistache. This meant
240 quarts of ice cream, whereof several
times that many sojourners at Asbury Park
would eat on Saturday evening and on
Sunday.
Saturday morning the Kurrus delivery
wagons were busy taking this cream about.
At some places they left freezers of various
in layers At other places they LETT bricks,
also assorted, in tin. They supplied hotels,
boarding houses and families
As has been said, 1t was the Sunday din
ner that caused the horror. From the
Angola House, from the Powelton, from
the Surf House, from the Shoreham, the
and the Grgg Villa and a score of
other places, came reports of the disastrous
effects of using the Kurrus ice cream.
The symptoms were everywhere the same,
varying in violence according to the guam
tity eaten ana the age and physical condi- |
tion of the eaters, and to add to the strange |
ness OF the attack there were many who ate |
yet felt not the slightest sickness Some |
had terrible gripping pains, accompanied by
headache, dizziness and diarrhoea; others |
had nausea, with Q numbness of the lower |
parts of the legs and arms; some were able |
to sit up, and others were so sick that they |
had to take to their beds
None OF tho Cases Fatal.
In two cases the doctors feared that death !
would follow. TODAY the doctors, having |
got over their hurryins to and fro some |
what, have been consulting and considering |
the case. Some of them say it was certainly |
tyrotoxicon bred in the cream and not |
boiled out of it; others say that it was YER
digris from the canisters that had not been
cleaned properly; others give up the matter
altogether and frankly admit that they
don't know what the cause was.
It is said by some that the strawberry ice
cream did the mischief, but this is shaken
by others who point to sick persons who say
they ate only of the vanilla. Kurrus says
that he boiled the cream before using 1t,
and that he carefully washed the canisters,
which were copper-lined.
AS no one is dead, and as the Board of
Health is fretful over the expense of
chemical analysis, it will never be known
why over hundred people of Asbury Park
we're sick. Kurrus himself lays it all to
The cream. He says the cans in which it
vas brought to him must have, had the
poison in them.
There was not a great deal of ice cream
,aten in Asbury Park last night, although
here were lots of young people about the
treets and although everyone was COM
blaming of the worst heat, into which ice
,ream fits so well.