Remarks on the Use of Borax and Formaldehyde as Preservatives of Food

SOME weeks ago, when I was giving evidence before the Food Preservatives Committee of the Local Government Board, I urged that the use of foreign substances as preservatives of food stuffs should be abandoned, and, if possible, replaced by a more wholesale use of the method of cold transport and storage. I took this view partly on general grounds, which were the following: (I) An antiseptic is inimical to the life of the organisms that cause putrefaction; it cannot, therefore, be harmless to the vital processes in the higher animals. (2) Numerous clinical observations have been recorded which show that dyspeptic and other troubles follow the use of foods which have been treated with commonly employed preservatives like borax. (3) Even if, as in the case of boric acid and borax, the poison is not cumulative, the continuous passage of foreign substances through the kidney cannot be beneficial to those organs. It is perfectly true that most of us are probably taking small doses of antiseptics in our foodstuffd without any obviously bad results; those who suffer are peculiarly susceptible to such drugs, but, as such cases are by no means uncommon, it appeared to me of sufficient importance to recommend legislation in the direction I have indicated. If, on the other hand, trade influences are too strong, at least articles mixed with drugs should be labelled as such, and not sold as fresh foods. In this way those people who are peculiarly susceptible to any particular antiseptic could avoid it. In any question of this kind one has to balance the good and the bad, that is to say, whether more harm will result from the products of putrefaction or from the antiseptic used to hinder or prevent putrefaction. But if the method of cold storage were made compulsory no such question could arise, for putrefaction would be prevented without foreign admixture. I was particularly questioned whether on physiological grounds there was any reason why the sterilising of mllk by heat could give rise to any toxic material. This I answered unhesitatingly In the negative. The milk proteids are rendered somewhat more difficult of digestion by heat, as in the cooking of all albuminous foods. But most gastric juices are able to grapple with this difficulty. Of course, in cases of feeble digestion, raw or underdone meat and uncooked milk axe preferable to foods which have been cooked too much, but there are no grounds for supposing that, in the case of milk, heating will split off from its proteid matter anything of the nature of a toxin. The special ground on which I opposed the use of antiseptics arose from some experiments I had done with arti-