Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-09-13
The HQskin Letter
By FREDERICK
]. S
FOOD POISONING CASES.

Every canned food poisoning case
reported in the newspapers for the last
dozen years has been carefully investi-
gated by this association, and practi-
cally all have been found to be spuri-
GUS. The things that get into the
newspapers as cases of poisoning by
canned food nearly always prove to be
cases of acute indigestion, of excessive
eating, of foreign substances getting
into food while being prepared for the
table, of dirty cooking utensils, of de-
liberate fraud, or as it happened once,
ever a leaky gas pipe in a dining room.
AS a grim by-product of these in
~vestigations, four murders have been
uncovered by the agents of the associa-
ton and one case of suicide revealed.
One woman poisoned her husband by
putting Paas green into canned sar-
dimes. The sardines themselves were
blamed for the death until the canning
experts found the administered poison.
A woman committed suicide, and the
physician to save her family from dis
grace, declared that she died after eat
ing canned tomatoes.
A more sensational episode occurred
in the south. Here a small child died
supposedly of food poisoning from
canned food. The account of the death
was published and accepted as the
truth. and the case was apparently
closed. The scientists of the Gamers
association kept on, however, and found
| evidence that a dose of strychnine had
been administered to the child. The
mother was finally confronted with the
evidence. She admitted the truth and
then before anybody could stop her,
she leaped from the window and was
killed.
No Ptomainss Ia Canned Foods
Another false idea that has gained
wide credence is that ptoraaine poison
il likely to occur in canned foods. Five
years ago., research into food poisons
began at four great American u%niver-
sities-Harvard. Stanford, University
of California and University of Chicago.
After five years of research they have
vet to find a can of food containing
ptomaines. The reason is that no such
thing as ptomaines exists. That theory
has been thoroughly exploded by inves-
legations. There are other food poi
sons, but they are not ptomaines.
The detection of false poisoning re
ports, however, is but a small part of
the work of the men in the Gamers
tdDOTdlUTJ III w dChAbStoA. 1hfAi NhANi
duties consist of Investigations looking
to the improvement of containers and
of the processes of good preservation.
Or. w. d. Bigelow, formerly of the
United States bureau of chemistry, is
the head of the laboratory.
These men who work constantly with
canned foods and who understand bet
ter than anyone else the gravity Of a
| genuine case of food poisoning, are
themselves consumers of canned food.
They know the conditions in the can
neries today and they have confidence
in the product. Moreover, when they
sit at table they take with them an
| apparatus which enables them to tell
whether food is wholesome. Every
one who reads this possesses the same
eeuipment-one's. own senses.
To quote the tobacco advertisement
your nose knows. The advice of the
canning experts to the general con-
sumer is this: Never swallow a bite
of any canned food that looks. smells
or tastes unlike the standard product,
even though the taste or smell be not
unpleasant. Throw the whole thing
away and take no chances. If all con
sumers did that. the small number OF
| genuine food-poisoning cases would be
reduced to almost nothing.