PURE FOOD.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19481, 30 November 1928, Page 2

PURE FOOD.

PRESERVATIVES NOT A SAFEGUARD. PATHOLOGIST'S VIEWS. (raoji o"ii ows coreeeposdext.) LONDON, October 16. A distinguished chemist has expiessed the opinion that the prohibition of boric acid as a food preservative has brought "a definite risk to the community because it limits the period during which food can be kept free from taint.'' Dr. A. Rutherford (Lecturer in Pathology, Edinburgh Medical School), writing in the "Daily Express," refutes this statement. "There is much misconception about the real position," lie says, "but one fact is that food poisoning outbreaks are fewer this year than before and with none at all in Scotland. They have, however, received much more publicity. ' "There is no mystery about the causes of this poisoning: they are microbes which become implanted in food—fresh or stale. Another fact is that the presence or absence of weak chemicals as preservatives is of no consequence. Such microbes and the poisons they elaborate cause acute gastroenteritis. • ' . "Long ago this was called 'ptomaine poisoning,' ptomaines being poisonous chemicals which can be extracted from putrid meat. We now know that actual ptomaine poisoning in man is exceedingly rare. The food-poisoning microbes have their natural habitats in animals and men. They have been long known to; physicians, patbolbgists, and public health experts. "A prominent member _ is the Aertrycke germ, discovered in 1896, and under natural conditions occurring in guinea pigs, mice, and other rodents. Another is Gaertner's bacillus, isolated in 1888. Aertrycke struck down 703 persons in a : Scottish city in 1924 mostly adult .women, who all had eaten cream.'cakes made with cream presumably contaminated by mice. "One- fly can plant enough filth in meat or milk to. poison a dozen people. Many meats, then, fresh or not fresh, cooked or not. - and. drinks, may become charged with food'poisoning bacilli. A preservative, no doubt, may keep fooa looking fresh and smelling so when all the time virulent microbes are lurking in it. Certainly * boric acid will keep things 'free from taint,' but it may mask a far greater menace. The prohibition by Government of phemical preservatives tends, therefore, to lessen and not to increase food poisoning' outbreaks.

Stricter Cleanliness. "The meat, inspection regulations and the Milk and DaiHe's Acts—irksome at times to traders —serve a similar purpose. Much stricter cleanliness than -hitherto is wanted all round in the handling, storage, and cooking of food. The utmost efforts should always be made to exclude flies, mice, and rats. "Milk should bo pasteurised and cold storage employed. "Cooking is, of course, a great safeguard, unless, perhaps in Gaertrier infection, whose poisons are heat resisting! Cold cooked food may be contaminated. A small outburst'of Aertrycke poisoning occurring in this way came under my notice a few years ago; the food in question was cold salmon. "Employees who are to handle or cook food in large concerns like -bakeries," hotels, restaurants, and clubs should be, proved not to be carriers of the . typhoid or' food poisoning germs before they are taken on. Simple tests can do this, and 'most public health "authorities will afford, facilities if asked. Hands must be kept scrupulously clean. 1 "Weak boric acid and such like never did, and never will, prevent virulent germs lurking in food from setting up acute .gastro-enteritisi "It is, to my mind, the veriest nonsense to suggest that the Ministry of Health and its scientific medical advisers been, collectively, either in gross error or over-enthusiastic in putting an embargo oh the doctoring of j food by chemicals.''