The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-09-14
By :. HAsKIN

WASHINGTON. D. c., Sept. IA
Here is a type of newspaper headline
long familiar to the American public
Seven of Family Ill After Eating
Canned Soup" The average reader
shakes his head over the item and
wonders if the restaurant where he
ate his lunch served him canned or
fresh vegetable in that salad. He de
cides that he will be careful about eat
ing canned stuff at home.
For the average person that is the
end of the affair. He forgets about
the sick family, but the news item has
deposited in his mind a little convic'
ton that canned foods, though cheap,
are hazardous and are to be partaken
OF only at ones peril.
The publication of such items, how
overland dozens of such items are
published every year in the American
newspapers-is only the beginning of
an episode for an organization main
tanned in Washington by the packers
of commercially canned foods. This
organization, the National Gamers
Association, occupied for the most part
with problems in science, now consti
tutes an investigation bureau. It's
agents get quickly on the job-within
"a hours, If possible. If the case is a
serious one, difficult of solution, it will
call in the services of some specialist
from one of the great universities The
investigation will probably end in a
labratory somewhere.
But by whatever means the inves.
tigation is conducted, the chances are
that the canned foods blamed will be
shown to be innocent and the illness
laid to ONE other aus AS to the
sick family cited above, the chemists
tube demonstrated that the illness was
due to some unwholesome meat served
at the meal. The canned soup was per
fectly wholesome.
The fact is that commercially
canned food today is the victim of a
legend. Whether there was aver any
basis in fact for the belief that such
food is dangerous, there certainly is
little basis for it now. The unmerited
evil reputation of timed food is kept
alive today principally by doctors
either through ignorance or careless
ness. A family suddenly becomes i'll,
obviously the victims of poison. The
family doctor inquiries Immediately
what the members have eaten. If by
any chance canned food of any sort
has been on the menu, it is enough
The doctor promptly names the cuI-
prit, and the newspapers have another
sensational item. The doctor may not
know that science has now shown that
the presumption of guilt lies just a.
heavily, if not more heavily, upon the
fresh food eaten by his patients. IN,
deed, it is probably a safe statement
that fresh foods today are more likely
to be unwholesome than canned foods,
The laboratory of the Harvard Medical
College has already demonstrated this
fact.
Gamers Sought Truth
About Gases.
a few years ago the leading food
Gamers of the country, believing N
the purity of their product and sus
pecting that many of the published
instances of canned-food poisoning
were ~unfounded, determined to make
Independent investigation of all case
reported in the newspapers. The
had organized the National Gamers
Association, and they charged thi
body with the responsibility of gettinl
at the truth. The subsequent invest
cations have shown that there is
surprisingly small number of bon
fide poisonings, particularly when j
is considered that the American publ
consumes hundreds of millions OF tin
3 Of food every year.
Every canned-food-poisoning case RI
ported in the newspapers for the las
dozen years has been carefully invest
gated by this association, and pra'
, cally all have been found to be spur
Gus. The things that get into the new:
> papers as cases of poisoning by came
food nearly always prove to be case
of acute indigestion, or excessive ca
ing, of foreign substances getting il
to food while being prepared for tn
table, of dirty cooking utensils, of d,
liberate fraud, or as it happened one,
b. even a leaky gas pipe in a dining roon
AS a grim by-product of these invel
LEGATIONS, four murders have been VI
i, covered by the agents of the associi
ton and one case of suicide reveale,
One woman poisoned her husband b