The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-05-16
PToKAINE POISONING.

Few people understand what pto-
maine poisoning is, says What to Eat.
Many sudden and otherwise unex-
plainable local epidemics are often at
tribused to it, when perhaps they may
be due to some other and unknown
origin. Ptomaine poisoning is form
of bacterial action which is just now
beginning to be reduced to very
scientific knowledge by the accumu
lating investigations of students of
bacteriology.
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
most dangerous. And the reason, when
one comes to think about it, is fairly
obvious. The canned goods are gen.
orally prepared from fresh material,
uSeu DSfUIS LnSIS h an OPPUi tunA1y
for decomposition to reach the danger
point, and they are further freed from
danger of bacterial action by careful
sterilization. And if these safeguards
have proved insufficient, as in rare in-
stances they do, there remains a
method by which the consumer can
tell whether or not the contents of a
given can are perfectly wholesome.
Merely inspect the can, and If the
busy bacteria are within you may be
sure that they will have been at
work and that their labor will have
produced gases, which in turn will
have affected the shape of the can.
If the ends bulge ever slightly, don't
buy it. But if the ends of the can
are concave the contents are quite
"safe and sane," to borrow the slo-
gan of recent campaign orators. Once
the can is opened, however, the con-
tents are perhaps more subject to
bacterial attact than most other food
products would be, and must be kept
very carefully and eaten as soon as
possible.
The word ptomaine has some
what startling significance, going
back to the Greek word for corpse,
the first ptomaines having been dis
covered in dead bodies. The name
was suggested in the early'8os by an
Italian scientist some years after the
first exact knowledge had been at
tanned of what the substance actually
was that for centuries had been caus
ing such disastrous results to human
beings who accidentally came in con
tact with it.
The first experimental study of the
effect produced upon animals by the
eating of unwholesome flesh was
carried on only 100 years ago when
the famous psychologist, Albert Won
Haller, began the present widespread
work in one of the most minutely dit
ferent of all scientific researches; and
though already it is said that the time
is not far distant when the danger OF
lr,tomaine poisoning with its centuries
beaftogd --5oliShed, there still re-
mains from scientific point of view
a wide field of investigation for the
labors of future generations of scien-
lists.
Food poisoning may be caused in
various ways, the most common cases
being those of meat, sausage, fish,
milk and cheese poisoning through
bacterial action producing ptomaines.
These bacterial changes usually take
place in the flesh before it is cured or
cooked. During this time the bacte-
ria, which act by attacking the nitro
genous portions of the TO ood
and breaking it up into other sub
stances, some of which are poisonous,
complete their work so thoroughly
that even the heat of an oven or fry
ing pan is insufficient to destroy their
newly acquired poisonous qualities.
Such changes take place with great
rapidity and are almost impossible to
detect in their first stages. Later the
decomposition is accompanied BY
characteristic odor, but the food may
have become dangerous before the
tel1tale evidences are noticeable.