CHAPTER XVI
FOOD POISONS
Sources
In most instances such poisoning comes from food that is preserved in some way. Very seldom do we find this poisoning in fresh foods. Such prepared foods as chopped meats, sausage, meat pies and salads, for example furnish the best sources for this poisoning. The formation period of the poison usually covers from eight to twenty-eight hours. There are two classes of food poisoning: first, food infection; second, food intoxication. Clinically, there is a great difference between them. Food infection is an acute condition in which there is nausea, vomiting, cramps, diarrhœa and fever. Food intoxication is a febrile condition characterized by nervous symptoms, paralysis and constipation.
In food infection the mortality is seldom above 1%, while in food intoxication it runs from 50% upward. The condition resulting from food intoxication is known as botulism. The statistics which are available on food poisoning would indicate that it is not very prevalent and the number of persons involved in outbreaks is comparatively small.
Many conditions in which there are gastro-intestinal symptoms might be mistaken for food poisoning. Such symptoms as nausea, cramps, vomiting or diarrhœa may be due to acute gastric indigestion, and may not be in any way associated with food poisoning.
Foods containing such poison should be thoroughly cooked so that the heat may penetrate to the very center. A temperature of 70° C. is sufficient to render the food free of the poison.
Food Infection
The incubation period of food infection is usually from six to twelve hours from the time the food is taken into the stomach until the manifestation of symptoms. This period may in some cases be reduced to only four hours, while in others it may be extended to seventy-two or more hours. This class of food poisoning is sometimes called meat poisoning from the fact that meat forms its chief vehicle, but milk and milk products and even vegetables may contain it.
The symptoms are characterized by acute gastro-intestinal disturbances. The onset is usually sudden. The first to appear are severe griping pains in the abdominal region, there may be various nervous manifestations, such as drowsiness, muscular twitchings and more or less restlessness. The abdominal pains may be accompanied with diarrhœa, nausea and vomiting. There may be chills and headache. As the condition progresses the stools become a greenish color and of a very watery consistency. There may be chills and headaches, marked muscular weakness, faintness and possibly prostration. The temperature runs from 102° F. to 103° F. There is excessive thirst, skin eruptions and herpes. There is often oliguria. The severity of the symptoms will depend upon the amount of poison taken into the system and the freedom of transmission of mental impulses, which will enable Innate Intelligence to bring about her adaptative processes. Usually the attack lasts only a few days, although the fulminating cases may prove fatal within twenty-four hours. Warm weather seems to be conducive to the formation of this poison, since the greater number of outbreaks occur in the summer time.
Food Intoxication
This form of food poisoning is called botulism. The poison which forms is the specific toxin produced by the activity of the bacillus botulinus. The botulis itself lives on decayed organic matter, therefore it is of the saprophyte type. This poison is found in a great many different foods of both plant and animal origin. The intoxication in botulism affects the central nervous system. It is a febrile condition and there are no gastro-intestinal disturbances. Usually the symptoms in botulism will appear from eighteen to thirty-six hours after the poison has been taken into the stomach. There are cases on record in which the symptoms have appeared within four hours. The period of incubation depends upon the amount of toxin ingested and the ability of Innate Intelligence to adapt the body to the poison.
The symptoms usually begin with headache and dizziness, feeling of fatigue and muscular weakness. One of the early symptoms is a disturbance of vision which may progress until the patient is blind. Both the extrinsic and intrinsic muscles of the eye become involved. There is blepharoptosis and the pupils become dilated. There is diplopia and the loss of adaptative response of the eye to the light. There is soon complete loss of accommodation, opthalmoplegia, nystagmus, strabismus and in some cases photophobia.
Concurrent with the beginning of the disturbances of vision there is difficulty in swallowing and talking, with a feeling of throat contraction. There may be frequent attacks of strangling, with extreme dryness of the mouth and throat, which result in a cough. Stubborn constipation results from lack of peristalsis. Beginning in the intestines and passing gradually upward there is progressive, ascending paralysis. The lack of proper nervous tone is evidenced by fatigue, drowsiness, headache and unsteadiness in walking which may result in a steppage gait, there is great muscular weakness and incontinence of urine. Other prominent symptoms are an insufficient secretion of saliva, sweat and tears and a deficiency in the excretion of urine. This results in a typical “dry man” condition. Later in the course of the dis-ease the temperature is subnormal and the pulse rapid. There may be paralysis of the laryngeal and pharyngeal muscles, which results in an inability to swallow. There may be complete aphonia. The case is very likely to develop bronchopneumonia, in which event there will be temperature. The facial expression is that of great anxiety and utter helplessness. The sensation of strangling becomes more frequent and there is a struggle for breath, death eventually resulting. The duration of this dis-ease varies greatly. Death may result in forty-eight hours after the poison has been ingested. Seldom will a condition run more than eight days. In cases that recover, convalescence is very slow. The patient may be many months recovering. The prognosis in botulism is considered very unfavorable, the mortality being as high as 100% in some outbreaks. The lowest mortality, according to statistics, is 37.5%.
Microscopic examination of the bodies which are the victims of botulism has revealed a great congestion of the central nervous system and also of the abdominal and thoracic viscera. Some have shown a great number of hemorrhages at the base of the brain and the upper portion of the spinal cord; the lungs are also congested. Originally it was supposed that food intoxication came only from sausage or other meat, but it has later been proven that this poison might develop not only in meat but in such food as string beans, cottage cheese, corn, asparagus, spinach and ripe olives. It has also been found in turkey, chicken and fish. Most cases of botulism result from the eating of foods that have received some preservative treatment; seldom will it be caused from the eating of fresh foods. Chiropractically this condition is in the poison family and would involve S.P. and K.P. as a major.
Adulteration of Food
Food adulteration may consist in:
1—Extraction of nutritive substances.
2—Addition of substances lowering the quality of the food.
3—Substituting inferior grades of food.
4—Fraudulent labeling of food.
5—Changing the appearance of food by coloring or other methods which will conceal the inferior quality.
6—Adding injurious substances for the purpose of preserving the food.
The Pure Food Act of 1906 makes the following classification in a statement of the methods which are considered in the adulteration of foods:
1—“If any substance has been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength.
2—“If any substance has been substituted, wholly or in part, for the article.
3—“If any valuable constituent or article has been, wholly or in part, abstracted.
4—“If it is mixed, colored, powdered, coated or stained in any manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed.
5—“If it contains any poisons or other added deleterious ingredient, which may render such articles injurious to health.
6—“If it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decomposed or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if it is the product of a dis-eased animal or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter.”
Rosenau gives the following as the most common adulterations:
“Cottonseed oil is sold as olive oil; honey may contain glucose; cocoa and chocolate are frequently mixed with both starch and sugar; coffee is extensively adulterated with caramel, pea-meal, chickory and saccharose extracts; lard is mixed with cheaper fats or cotton seed oil; saccharin is substituted for cane sugar; cereals give bulk and weight to sausages; gypsum or bran is added to flour; barium sulphate to powdered sugar, flour to turmeric or corn-meal to mustard; oleomargarine is sold as butter; distilled and colored vinegar is sold as cider vinegar; ground spices are adulterated with cocoanut shells, rice, flour and ashes; water, sugar and tartaric sold as lemonade; wines and liquors are sometimes adulterated with alum; baryta, caustic lime, salicylic acid, wood alcohol and hematoxylin, terra alba, kaolin, and various pigments are sometimes added to candies; gum drops are largely made with petroleum paraffin products; much of the maple sugar formerly sold was made from glucose and coloring matter.”
A good illustration of separating the nutritive substances is the extraction of cream from milk and certain elements from meat. There is really no objection to abstracting nutritive elements from food if afterward that food is properly labeled; there is no objection in taking cream out of milk and selling the skim milk, providing it is not sold for whole milk.
An illustration of lowering the quality of the food is the addition of water to milk, of bran to flour, of bariumsulphate to powdered sugar.
An illustration of substitution would be to substitute saccharine for sugar, oleomargarine for butter, cottonseed oil for olive oil.