Starting in the middle of the nineteenth-century companies started using preservatives and additives to the food and drinks in America. For example, milk which was still not being pasteurized even though Louis Pasteur had invented the method in the 1860s, leaving bacteria in the milk, but that was not all that was being left in the milk, manure could be found, sticks, dirt, chalk to give it a white appearance and formaldehyde to preserve it longer. Children were getting sick and dying from drinking this milk, yet few were doing anything about it. But that was just one thing. Beer and wine were being preserved with salicylic acid, which could make people ill at certain doses. Butter was using borax, the cleaning product, to help itself while canned vegetables were using copper sulphate, a toxic metallic salt that makes pickles greener. And of course the huge debate over what was whiskey and how to label blended whiskeys that added dyes and differentiate between imitations that were just ethanol.
Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemistry professor from Perdue, who had grown up on a farm in Indiana, in 1883 was hired on as the chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture. Of course, at the time there was no Secretary of Agriculture because it wasn't a cabinet position yet and wouldn't be until 1888. The head was known as the commissioner. There were several that were great to work with who supported his work, but there was one who slashed the budget to pieces for running experiments and that was Julius Sterling Morton. He didn't want him running experiments on food issues but concentrating only on farm concerns.
Then in 1896 his biggest friend and then foe would be placed in the position of Secretary of Agriculture. James Wilson was interested in running experiments and fixing the food problem. But Wilson was also a friend to the businessman and didn't believe in hurting business if possible, while Wiley was becoming more and more of a crusader for the consumer.
In 1901, Wiley had become even more famous when he experimented on preservatives and additives to food when he got a group of men to dine their three meals while taking a pill (or not if they were in the control group) in various degrees of strength. A newspaperman called them the Poison Squad. He tried out borax, salicylic acid, saccharine, sulfurous acid, and other things on the men. The results were the same. They all got sick and at least half if not more could not finish the test for these substances.
After a long fight, with support from scientists, the American Medical Association, women's groups', and some businesses such as Heinz who used no preservatives and were being hurt by companies who did, a watered-down Pure Food and Drug Act would be passed in 1906 but the real fight would begin after that by trying to enforce it. They would sue Coke Cola for having the dangerous drug caffeine in it. But by demanding labeling they helped consumers. It wasn't the best law. Better laws would come along later. But it would get the ball rolling and Wiley was the father of this first law. Wiley could be stubborn and unbending especially in his later years when he became even more protective of "his" law, but he believed in protecting the people first. This is a fascinating read about a little-known law that we take for granted. The author does an excellent job of keeping you interested in a book that could easily slip into boring territory with talk of lab work and agriculture. I give this book four out of five stars.
Quotes
Quotes
In a talk to chemists visiting from Europe, he [Harvey Wiley] said, “Man’s highest ambition in this country is to strive to be the equal of woman.”
-Deborah Blum (The Poison Squad: One Chemist Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century p 108)
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