Dangerous Dried Fruit.

carbon monoxide, is due to its action upon the nervous system, and especially upon the nerve centers.'

To Detect Ammonia-Mix one heaping teaspoonful of baking powder with one teaspoonful of water in a tin cup; boil thoroughly for a few moments, stir to prevent burning, and if ammonia is present you can smell it in the rising steam. Or place a can of the suspected powder top down on a hot stove for a minute or two, then take off the cover and smell.

DANGEROUS DRIED FRUIT.

The American Public Health Association has issued a bulletin warning the people against the use of fruit dried or bleached by what is known as the "sulphuring process." The practice is unqestionably criminal and ought to land the perpetrators in the penitentiary. Housewives have become familiar with the "nice white dried fruit" to be found in grocery stores, put up in boxes. The housewife should let it severely alone.

At the last meeting of the American Public Health Association, Dr. Joel W. Smith, of Charles City, presented a paper upon this subject which is given in full:

The subject of this paper should command the careful attention of consumers of dried fruit, of conscientious fruit dealers, and of all health authorities. Fruit is now regarded more as a necessity than as a luxury, the want of it being a common cause of ill health.

As fresh fruit is not always obtainable, various methods for preserving it are in use, drying being one of the oldest and best for many fruits. Middleaged people recollect when sun or air drying was the only method for market. Then some good housewife discovered that more rapid drying by artificial heat, with or without the addition of sugar, was a cleaner method, safer against fermentation and decay, retained the flavor better, and the fruit was also lighter colored, than when sun or air dried. The present evaporators are only an enlargement of the idea of such more rapid drying, while canning consists in the exclusion of the microorganic germs of fermentation.

This is an age of progress, yet experience often shows that not all changes are improvements. It is about fifteen years since the sulphuring or bleaching of dried fruit began. At first only the uniform light color was sought,

Dangerous Dried Fruit.

as in apples, pears, etc., but for some years past nearly all the large evaporating establishments have "sulphured" all kinds of fruits and some vegetables, and now much of the California sun-dried fruit for market is treated in the same manner. The light color, especially of apples, early attracted unthinking consumers and commercial men, thus materially increasing the price of such fruit. That caused the practice to spread even to those who disapproved of it. The expense and trouble were very slight. Fruit so treated is said to dry more readily, consequently all now prefer to do it.

While the apparent change is only in color, there is a loss of the natural fruit flavor, even by the most careful sulphuring. Unfortunately, some people do not notice the difference, but careful comparison shows it, as is admitted by the manufacturers of such fruit.

The practice began in California, with apricots, as early as 1879. At the Twelfth State Fruit Growers' Convention, held in Fresno during four days in November, 1889, a paper on "Fruit Drying" was read by J. L. Mosher, of San Jose, and in his paper he remarked.—“If fruit be picked before ripe and over-sulphured to produce whiteness, it is devoid of its true rich taste and flavor, and only requires polishing to make buttons." (The italics are his ) In discussing the paper, one gentleman said, “I believe sulphuring the fruit is the greatest mistake in the world. I do it, but I believe it is wrong; the flavor of the fruit is gone after it is sulphured."

This change in quality was the first thing that called the attention of the writer's family to what was lacking in the "nice, uniformly colored" bleached fruits.

Later investigations have proved the presence of sulphate of zinc, "white vitriol," in all samples of fruit where zinc-surfaced trays were used to hold sulphured fruit while drying. Interested parties have charged the German prohibition of American evaporated apples to rival trade opposition, but there is no German fruit to compete with them. The real cause was the finding of zinc poison in considerable quantity. A good paternal government aims to protect its people.

WHY SULPHUR FRUIT AT ALL?

The advocates of sulphuring fruit say,-(1) It dries quicker, (2) looks better, (3) keeps better, and (4) sells better. Beside, it makes ripe, unripe and poor fruit all look alike; and if not so good for it, but few know it.

Sulphurous acid is formed by burning sulphur, and is readily absorbed by water. It abstracts oxygen from many vegetable substances and thereby bleaches them. It also tends to prevent microscopic organization that causes fermentation. The acid in liquid form is colorless, very cheap and smells like burning sulphur; is antiseptic, a preservative fluid for some substances, sample fruits, etc. Sulphur is often burned to disinfect sick-rooms of disease germs and to kill rats, mice and vermin, but its use with food is objectionable. Ants and other insects, it is said, will not touch sulphured fruit, while they readily attack well ripened fruit that is not sulphured. The instinct of insects and animals is sometimes better than the practice of human

Dangerous Dried Fruit.

beings. In general, substances that repel such creatures are hardly safe for human food.

THE EFFECT ON CONSUMPTION

has seemed to be a decided falling off in demand among the more intelligent class of people. Retail grocers know that many who once used dried fruit extensively say, "Somehow we have lost our relish for it," and have almost ceased to use it since the craze for sulphuring fruits began. Fruit men say, "The public demands sulphured fruit, will pay more for it, and we will supply it." The public will yet show them that it can get its eyes open. the green and canned fruit interests are the only permanent gainers by the sulphuring process, they are interested to have it continued.

. DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN.

As

In 1889

It is not easy to obtain a superior quality of unbleached fruit. several retail grocers who understood the question corresponded with parties evaporating apples. The reply was, that "if an order for not less than twenty barrels was received at one time, apples would be furnished unbleached, otherwise not."

SULPHURING NOT DESIRABLE.

The slightly yellowish-brown color of unbleached dried fruit is an evidence of ripeness, good quality and proper drying. The more rapid the drying the lighter will be the color and the fruit will keep well if at once properly excluded from the air. When sulphured, the good, the poor and the unripe all look alike. Not so with the unbleached. No poor nor unripe fruit can make good dried fruit. The gain of sulphuring is always with the dealer, and not with the consumer.

HEALTH AGAINST LOOKS.

Public en

In preferring looks to quality the people are often at fault. lightenment will correct most dietetic errors. Good health is now sought by many, and will be by more in the near future, through correct living, rather than by the swallowing of drugs. And in that more excellent way, "in the good time coming," there will be no demand for sulphured and other drugged fruit among intelligent people.

DANGERS.

There is danger from fruit in metal cans, as is well known, and fresh fruit is frequently unobtainable, while both are often more expensive than dried fruits. Good unsophisticated dried fruits are always harmless. If green fruits are at times unobtainable, canned fruits dangerous, and a popular craze has rendered dried fruits also dangerous, what can the suffering public do? It is between the alternatives of using no fruit or that which is injured or poisonous. Is the sulphuring of fruit a mistake or a crime?

Ice Cream Poisoning-Tyrotoxicon.

TO CORRECT THE ERROR,

enlighten the people and prohibit injurious practices. Legal suasion only will stop it at present. The common schools in many States are required to teach the effects of alcohol and narcotics. Why not also include the effects of different foods?

ICE CREAM POISONING-TYRO

TOXICON.

On the fourth day of July, 1889, a most extensive outbreak of ice cream poisoning occurred at Adair, and was reported by Dr. Thomas D. Lougher. There were in all nearly one hundred and twenty cases. Some were very severe and well-nigh proved fatal, though all finally recovered. The symptoms were more or less uniform, differing mainly in severity and were those of irritation of the stomach and bowels, followed by more or less prostration. The cream was flavored with extract of vanilla.

Several samples of the cream and a sample of the vanilla were furnished Dr. Robert McNutt, chemist, of this city. An examination of the vanilla gave only negative results. Large doses taken by him produced no unpleasant effects. A careful examination of the samples of cream after Vaughan's methods, resulted in finding tyrotoxicon present to a large extent, which was reduced to a fine crystaline form.

This tyrotoxicon is a ptomaine, and is the result of decomposition, or fermentative process set up in the milk. It may be produced by any and all those causes that lead to the decomposition of milk, by the introduction of a specific microbe, such as uncleanliness, impure water, keeping the milk in mouldy and unhealthy positions, and hauling milk for long distances in the hot sun. It is supposed by many that the "milk sickness" so prevalent in some sections of the country is the result of tyrotoxicon poisoning. Unquestionably many cases of cholera infantum that occur everywhere among children "raised by hand," and especially attempted to be raised on the bottle with the rubber tube attachment, are nothing more nor less than cases of tyrotoxicon poisoning.

Ice Cream Poisoning-Tyrotoxicon.

In January 1891, two pieces of cheese were received from Dr. Reynolds, at Centerville, with a statement that both were from the same invoice, made at the same factory, and at the same time. The cheese from which sample marked "No. 1" was taken was eaten of by twenty persons, all of whom were soon after affected with all the symptoms of tyrotoxicon poisoning. Of sample No. 2 none was eaten.

The samples were given to Prof. Floyd Davis, chemist of the State Board, who, after a careful analysis for tyrotoxicon after Vaughan's method, reported that in sample No. 1 there was distinct reaction for that ptomaine, but in sample No. 2 there was none, and it was free from ptomaines.

June 2, 1890, Dr. A. D. Bundy, of Mitchell county, reported that he purchased on May 31st a cheese at one of the groceries. At supper he with two other adults ate of the cheese, and in about six hours all were taken with violent pains in the bowels, diarrhoea, nausea, and vomiting, which continued for twenty-four hours. Recovery was had in three or four days. Several other families in the same county purchased, the same week, cheese made at the same time and place as that purchased by Dr. Bundy, and all-over forty persons, were sick with the same symptoms.

THE ICE-CREAM FREEZER A SOURCE OF DANGER.

Dr. George S. Hull, Ph. G., of Chambersburg, Pa., reports several cases of poisoning from ice-cream, which could not be explained upon the tyrotoxicon theory. He turned his attention to the freezer, and after four years of experimentation and observation he gives his conclusion in the Medical News of June 27, 1891. He says:

The modern ice-cream freezer is in reality but a form of galvanic cell, the only difference being that in the cell the current is utilized and the poisonous solution of zinc thrown away, while the current is wasted and the toxic metallic solution is eaten. The freezer may be described as an iron paddle coated with zinc, resting upon an iron bottom coated with the same metal and surrounded with a zinc-coated iron case. If we put in an acid solution a strip of zinc and one of tin, and connect them by a wire which runs through a galvanometer, at once the needle is deflected, which shows that the zinc is being consumed by the acid; so, if we take a tinned can and a zinc-coated paddle in the modern freezer, and instead of letting them be in contact at the bottom, lift the paddle a trifle and make the contact above