Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-11-07
THE CAUSE OF APPENDICITIS.
Preservaiyes Used by Meat Packers
 and Food Manufacturers.

Washington, Nov 7.-The passage or the pure food law by congress last winter and the preparations that are going ahead for it's enforcement after the beginning of the next year have brought out some startling informa- ton. The discovery has been made mat more causes of appendicitis are due, not to the lodging of grape seed and other Instructions in the human appendix, but to the preseryatives that in recent years meat packers and other food manufacturers, have been dealing out ill generous quantities along with their wares to keep them pure and to make them saleable. Chief among them are borax and it's equivalent, b0racic acid.
 Formerly appendicitis was not malady of frequent occurrence, but in later years, since the disease has become fashionable. It's appearance is strikingly and alarlningly frequent, so much so in fact, that the grape seed theory must fall of its own weakness.
 Science, however, is sufficient for almost any task demanded of if. and now many reputable physicians are declaring their belief that appendici- tis fs due directly to the quantities of bOracic acid which the average person takes into the stomach during a life time. One leading physician has given it as his belief that little borlc acid Is harmless, but in the constant intro duction of it into the human system through the agency of good ham or q dish of savOry corn beef, the con- sumer runs almost as great risk as he would do were he to enter drug store and ask for ordinary poison marked with the usual skull and cross bones.
 The situation is one that is equally alarming to food producers and to laymen, physicians and scientists alike In fact the people who are necessarily consumers of much Of the food and meat products of the c0un- try have wakened from their sense of security in the government tag. and find that they must either return to old salt pork and jerked beef or take chances under the operators knife.
 Rude sayages tear their meat in strips and dry it in the sun; more ad- vanced types smoke their meat, but science steps in and shows that the preservative qualities of smoke are dependent upon the presence of pyro- ligneous acid, and the savage hees from 1t as he would from the pesti- lence, and goes to salt: and salt for q number of year has been known as one of the best of meat preservatlves. Then 1t was discovered that sodium might kill. Vinegar, sugar and alcohol were in turn tried, but they were so rank poisonous in their nature that the government stopped their use long time ago. pr Wiley, the head of the chemical brgeau of the Agricultural depart ment, has found that salicylic acid and borax. well known food prescrva- tiyes, made constant users of them i'll, though he does not go as far as some physicians and say they would cause appendicitis.
 The people are approaching the spooky age In food agitation, ani at the same time 1t is one that Is caus- l ing meat packers considerable alarm lest further agitation against canned meats and conservatives may cause them to suffer more financially than they have already suffered. while at l the same time meat consumers are dreading to know with what poison ous articles they are daily filling their systems,