Canned food and poisoning in 19th-century Poona

The frenzy was due to two reports published in the Bombay newspaper within two weeks in December 1884

In January 1885, shopkeepers in Poona and Bombay stocking European and American canned foods were suddenly and unexpectedly faced with customers returning their unopened cans or cancelling their orders for future purchases. On February 18, 1885, a Bombay newspaper reported that Phillips & Co in Poona had received very few orders for canned foods in the previous couple of months and had hence decided to return the advance amounts they had collected from the customers.

In the nineteenth century, while canned food was initially an expensive luxury, wars and industrialisation helped to increase its availability to working-class men. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC)

The frenzy was due to two reports published in the Bombay newspaper within two weeks in December 1884. The first speculated that three cases of poisoning due to canned tomatoes were reported at Poona that month, out of which one person had died. The second report was about a meeting convened by the Medico-Legal Society of New York on April 9, 1884, where Dr John G Johnson tabled a report of six cases of poisoning which had occurred in his practice in a family in America after having eaten canned tomatoes at lunch.

In the nineteenth century, while canned food was initially an expensive luxury, wars and industrialisation helped to increase its availability to working-class men. It became more affordable as production methods improved and canning companies expanded to meet military demands. A wide range of canned goods became available to urban populations at lower prices.

Adulteration of food was a major contributor to the poor quality of life in the industrial towns of early nineteenth-century Europe. Fraudulent adulteration of basic foodstuffs, the use of preservatives and colourants, and bacterial contamination were major causes of illness and death.

The canning process was then crude, often done in small canneries with unsanitary work environments and lacking refrigeration. It was not uncommon for contaminated cans to slip onto grocery store shelves.

While several instances of poisoning due to the consumption of canned food was attributed to bacterial contamination, the question of whether danger might arise in the use of canned provisions, from “formation of poisons” by action of the acids on the tin or solder, excited much attention since canned food gained popularity in the mid-nineteenth century all over the world.

The preservation of food in hermetically sealed cans had added much to the comfort and health of the public, but still, unscrupulous tradesmen had dealt in damaged, unsound, and unwholesome canned food that had reached the shores of India, wrote the Bombay newspaper on September 18, 1882. It added that serious sickness had occurred therefrom, both in India and abroad that the public confidence had been shaken, and a large portion of the community looked with doubt and distrust upon all canned foods.

Papers and articles published in European and American journals after 1875 reported many cases of poisoning after eating canned tomatoes and fish. Canned tomatoes were cheap in the US and were bought by families with times being hard. In some cases, the presence of the characteristic blue line on the gums, the presence of colic, great muscular weakness, constipation, and nausea, with the frequent metallic taste in the mouth all pointed to lead poisoning. Doctors and scientists argued that the lead could be traced to the solder in the can, the metallic cement used in joining pieces of the same or different metals.

Other reports attributed the poisoning to tin. In 1878, AE Menke reported that in an analysis of many specimens of canned lobsters, apples, and pineapples, he found tin present in the contents of all. Two years later, W Hehner reported similar findings. However, scientists debated whether the amount of tin found in the canned foods was sufficient to cause poisoning.

The question of the extent to which the danger, if any, of poisoning might exist was investigated in 1882 by Prof SA Lattimore of the University of Rochester, an analyst of the New York State Board of Health. He had paid attention to the possibility of the chemical action of the “fruit acids” upon the inner surface of the cans, whereby salts of tin and lead might be produced, rendering the contents to “some degree poisonous”.

In 1883, the New York State Board of Health accepted a report by Prof Albert Chester of Hamilton College that said that canned foods were not to be blamed for reported poisonings. Chester wrote that many people, particularly in mining and lumber camps, ate canned goods every day of their lives and did not suffer as a consequence.

At the meeting convened by the Medico-Legal Society of New York on April 9, 1884, Johnson said that he had found that in soldering on the cap of the can, muriate or chloride of zinc had been used as the amalgam instead of the resin ordinarily employed. He suggested that every article of canned food that did not show the line of resin around the edge of the solder of the cap and every can that showed any rust around the cap on the inside of the head of the can should be rejected.

Taking cognisance of this, the State of Maryland passed a law forbidding the use of zinc and tin amalgam in canning food.

Ernest F Schwaab, during the same meeting, mentioned that from time to time State chemists had made careful analyses of samples of every kind of American canned food in the market, and in no instance had they found a trace of lead or any other poison; traces of tin had been found, but “tin was not very poisonous”; every kitchen in the land was well supplied with tin vessels of all sorts of uses and no poisoning ever resulted.

He further mentioned that lead was freely used by the packers both in the solder and low-grade tin plate; but there was little danger of lead-poisoning by the use of canned goods, for tin precipitated lead from its solution, and lead was not attacked by the acids in the presence of as much tin as was found in the tin plates used to make cans. According to him, there was more danger of lead poisoning from the sheet-lead tops of glass jars than from the solder or lead of the tin cans.

The debate continued till the early twentieth century when advances in food chemistry and the skill and professionalism of food analysts operating within the regulatory framework ensured that food quality improved. Changes in patterns of food supply, the structure and organisation of food manufacturing and distribution played an equally important role in changing the popular perception towards canned foods.

The Bombay newspaper, in May 1885, published a report quoting the officials of the Medico-Legal Society and declared that canned foods were safe. European stores in Poona and Bombay returned with their advertisements of a variety of canned foods soon after.