Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1905-01-02
PtOmaine Poisoning
-. Scientifically Explained
aAA IA9oaaS4
The Causes OF. Bacterial Changes in Meat,-Mk@ and
Fish Precautions that Should be Taken lin
Preparation of Food Products ~ Canned Goods
Are Safer Than Is Commonly Supposed

! Boston, Dec. 25.-Just what ''pto-
maine poisoning really is puzzles the
average man. For some years it has
been the fashion to attribute any sud-
den and otherwise unexplainable To-
cal epidemic of disease to this dread
Ecause-a form of bacterial action very
vaguely understood by most of us, and
o1ly beginning to be reduced to exact
scientific knowledge by the accumu-
lating Investigations Of students Of
bacteriology. nM qa9
For example, it is undoubtedly true
that of all articles of food canned
goods, if properly prepared are about
the safest from the action of the bugs
that make the ptomaines." Yet they
have long. been popularity believed to
be the most dangerous. And the rea-
son. when one comes to think about it,
is fairly obvious. The canned goods
are generally prepared from fresh ma
terial used before there is opportun-
ity for decomposition to reach the dan
GER point, and they are further freed
from danger of bacterial action by
careful sterilization. And if these
safeguards have proved inefficient, as
il. rare instances they do, there re-
mains a method by which the consunl-
or canytell whether or not the contents
of a given can are perfectly whole
some. All that is necessary is to in
spect the can and, if the busy bacteria
are within, you may be sure that they
will have been ait work and that their
labor will have produced gases which
in turn will have affected the shape
of the can! If its ends bulge ever so
slightly, don't buy it But if the ends
of the can are concave the contents
are quite "safe and sane" to borrow
the slogan of recent campaign orators.
| Once the can is opened however, the
contents are as subject to bacterial at
tack as any other food product would
be and must he kept as carefully.
This whole subject, according to
Professor S. G. Prescott of the depart
ment of industrial biology at the Mas
sachusetts Institute of Technology, is
now much better, understood by the
experts than formerly, and the main
features of it can easily be made In
telligible to the man in the street.
For a long time after the ptomaines,
or poisonous substances, were first dis
covered, it was imagined that they
were themselves a form of bacteria.
But it is now we'll known that they
are simply poisonous substances pro
duced by the combined action of hum
dreds of minute organisms-the so
called "putrefying" bacteria-on the
food products eaten by all kinds of hui
rnanity except the vegetarians. The
ptomaines are, therefore practically as
many in number as the different ami
NAL food products-but all alike in
their power to make trouble for hui
manity All are alike, also, in that
they induce evils which are prevent
able. One important reason, for ex-
ample, why pork has attained SO I'M
ienviable areputation for unwholesome
Qualities is due not to the personal.
habits of Mr.. Pig, burt to the careless
way in which he has been handled
while being transformed into saus-
sages. The subject, therefore, is
obviously one of vital Importance to
human well-being- much SO that it
not only absorbs the attention of
many individual scientists but has be-
come of late years an important part
Of the meteorological work of such an
Institution as the Massachusetts In
stitute of Technology, where not only
instructors but also advanced stu
dents are constantly working along.
specific lines of individual research.
Ald it is owing to such researches,
the world over, that ptomaine poison
ing is losing its terror in proportion as
ii is made more and more unlikely by
scientific methods in the preparation
of food products.
The name ptomaine has a rather
the Greek word for corpse, the first
startling significance, going back to
ptomaines have been discovered in
dead bodies. ,f
Food poisoning may be caused in
various ways-the most common
cases geings those of meat, sausage,
fish, milk, and cheese. poisoning,
through bacterial action producing pto-
maines. These bacterial changes
usually take place in the flesh before
it is cured or cooked During this