The microbial paradox of the festive feast: Historical bacteriology and the danger of meat

“ In America we make fine distinctions, even in American turkeys; tastes differ with localities. In some northern States no turkey is perfect unless stuffed with chestnuts—that is, as food. In Louisiana he is [Pg 172] gorged with pecan-nuts. In South Carolina raw rice is your only prime turkey-food. In Virginia wild persimmons give the turkey a tang that gilds refined gold. The President of the United States, whoever he may be, feasts every Thanksgiving Day on a Narragansett turkey fattened on Narragansett grasshoppers—and I approve the President’s taste. ”

“ For there in France every meal is a ceremony; but in this land we eat not for the pleasurable taste which, in savory food, delights and tempts, but we eat swiftly and carelessly and chiefly to stay our hunger.
Yet, at times, food smacks smartly to my tongue; as when at Christmas tide I shot a great wild turkey on the Stacking Ridge; and when Penelope basted it in the kitchen my mouth watered as I sniffed the door-crack.
And again, gone stale with soupaan and jerked meat and fish soused or dried with salt, Nick shot a yearling buck near our barn at daylight ”

“ In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the blessing of food—the act of eating—should have had a particular expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of existence. ”

“ Still going on the assumption that the turkey and the sucking pig and their kindred spirits are yet to be found among us or among some of us, anyhow, it is only logical to assume that the food is not served in courses at the ratio of a little of everything and not enough of anything, but that it is brought on and spread before the company [Pg 39] all together and at once—the turkey or the pig or the ham or the chickens; the mashed potatoes overflowing their receptacle like drifted snow; the celery; the scalloped oysters in a dish like a crock ”

“ Every kernel of grain which he picks from the barn-floor may represent an instant of masticatory joy held in store for some as yet unconscious maxillary; we may weigh the bird by the amount of happiness he will afford. When we go to market, to barter for our Thanksgiving turkey, we inquire substantially of the spruce vender, glistening in his white apron: "How much gustatory delight does yonder cock contain?" And he, gross slave of matter, doth respond, giving the estimate in dollars and parts of dollars! ”

“ The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope. ”

“ A group of bacteria, ever alert to find matter not already appropriated and held in place by vital forces stronger than their own, find their food and breeding place within a human body, and subject [Pg 85] our friend or our child to weeks of fever, and perchance to death. ”

“ Meat in particular has been implicated so often that the term meat poisoning is used about as commonly as the term food poisoning in general discussions of this subject. Certain it is that the great majority of the best-studied and most severe outbreaks of food poisoning have been attributed on good grounds to the use of meat or meat products. Other animal foods, and especially milk and its derivatives, cheese and ice-cream, have likewise been held responsible for extensive and notable outbreaks. ”

“ It is worth noting that some of the internal organs, as the liver and kidneys, are more likely to contain bacteria than the masses of muscle commonly eaten as "meat." Sausages, from their composition and mode of preparation, and chopped meat ("hamburger steak") are also to be treated with especial care. Consumption of such foods as raw sausage or diseased goose liver (paté de foie gras) involves a relatively high risk. It is true of paratyphoid infection as of most other forms of food poisoning that thorough cooking of food greatly diminishes the likelihood of trouble. ”

“ The even greater culpability of raw milk is due to the fact that milk is not only, like meat, sometimes obtained from an infected animal, but that it is a particularly good culture medium for bacteria, and in the process of collection or distribution may become infected through the agency of a human carrier. Foods such as ice-cream that are prepared with milk are also often connected with food poisoning. It seems probable that illness caused by ice-cream is much more commonly due to bacterial infection than to poisoning with metals or flavoring extracts. ”

“ There seems reason to believe that in such an animal, "killed to save its life," the specific paratyphoid germ is present as an infection before death. Milk also has caused paratyphoid poisoning and in certain of these cases has been found to be derived from a cow suffering from enteritis or some other disorder. (3) There is evidence that originally wholesome food may become infected with paratyphoid bacilli during the process of preparation or serving in precisely the same way that it may become infected with typhoid bacilli ”

“ Perhaps the most significant feature of food poisoning attacks is the frequency with which they have been traced to the use of raw or imperfectly cooked food. The probable interpretation of this fact will be discussed in the later chapters. Especially have the use of uncooked milk, either by itself or mixed with other food substances, and the eating of raw sausage brought in their train symptoms of poisoning in a disproportionately large number of cases. ”

“ While there is still some uncertainty about particular features of paratyphoid infection, a few significant facts have been clearly established: (1) Certain articles of diet are much more commonly associated than others with this type of food poisoning. The majority of recorded outbreaks are connected with the use of meat, milk, fish, and other protein foods. Vegetables and cereals have been less commonly implicated, fruits rarely. ”

“ Shellfish poisoning from eating oysters, mussels, or clams is unquestionably caused in some instances by sewage contamination of the water from which the bivalves are taken, and in such cases bacilli of the typhoid or paratyphoid groups are commonly concerned. It is a disputed question whether certain recorded outbreaks of mussel poisoning have been due to bacterial infection or whether sometimes healthy or [p.107] diseased mussels taken from unpolluted water contain a poisonous substance. ”

“ Proof of the frequency with which this actually occurs is naturally difficult to obtain.
There is no escape from the conclusion that in any given case of food poisoning the exact source of infection is often largely conjectural. Even when suspicion falls strongly on a particular article of food, it may not be possible to establish beyond a reasonable doubt whether the material (meat or milk) came from a diseased animal or whether it was infected from other sources (man or other animals) at some stage during the process of preparation and serving. ”

“ Most of the commissions and official agencies that have considered the precautions to be taken against possible tuberculous meat infection are agreed that the entire carcass of an animal should be condemned when the tuberculous lesions are generalized or when the lesions are extensive in one or both body cavities as well as when the lesions are "multiple, acute, and actively progressive." Any organ showing evidence of tuberculous lesions is obviously not to be passed as food. ”

“ There is, therefore, ground for believing that occasional contamination of food may be brought about by bacteria of this group derived from human sources. It is not clear, however, how frequent this source of infection is, compared to infection originating in diseased animals. It must be admitted, too, that English investigators are disposed to look upon outbreaks similar to those just described as infections with B. paratyphosus B, an organism which they would distinguish from the "true" food poisoning bacilli, B. enteritidis and B. suipestifer. ”

“ The use of such viruses has not proved of very great practical value in the destruction of rodents, and is open to serious sanitary objections, since the animals after apparent recovery can continue to carry the bacilli of the virus and to distribute them on or near food substances.
It seems possible that rats and mice may become infected with certain bacteria of this group without human intervention, and that these infected animals may be the means of contaminating foodstuffs and so causing outbreaks of food poisoning. ”

“ It is, then, absolutely proved, that if splenic fever germs exist, as they often do, in the light earth which covers the pits in which animals dead of that disease lie buried, these germs result from the disintegration by rain of the little excremental cylinders deposited by the earth-worms. The dust of this disintegrated earth spreads itself over the grasses on a level with the soil, and thus it is that animals come to find on the pasture-field, and in particular kinds of forage, the germs of splenic fever by which they are infected. ”

“ Many cases of so-called food poisoning are due to the presence of pathogenic bacteria in the food. In some instances, as in the typical meat poisoning epidemics, symptoms develop so soon after eating that the particular food involved is immediately suspected and laid hands on. In other cases the guilty article of food is difficult to trace. Certain cases of tuberculosis are undoubtedly caused by swallowing tubercle bacilli in the food, but the precise source and date of infection can be rarely, if ever, certainly established. ”

“ In the opinion of some investigators the formation of these toxic bodies by the paratyphoid-enteritidis bacilli in meat and other protein foodstuffs is responsible for certain outbreaks and also for some of the phenomena of food poisoning, the rapid development of symptoms being regarded as due to the ingested poisons, whereas the later manifestations are considered those of a true infection. Opposed to this view is the fact that well-cooked food has proved distinctly less liable to cause food poisoning than raw or imperfectly cooked food. ”

“ General characters of paratyphoid infection.—The symptoms of paratyphoid food infection are varied. As a rule the first signs of trouble appear within six to twelve hours after eating, but sometimes they may come on within half an hour, or they may not appear until after twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Gastro-intestinal irritation is practically always present, and may take the form of a mild "indigestion" or slight diarrhea or may be of great severity accompanied with agonizing abdominal pain. Fever is usual, but is generally not very high. ”

“ B. proteus is common enough in decomposing food material and under certain circumstances is known to generate substances that are toxic for man. It is possibly true that toxic substances are produced in the early stages of decomposition by this organism. In the opinion of Mandel [61] and others, if any injurious effect at all is to be attributed to B. proteus, it is in the nature of an intoxication and not an infection (see chapter viii) . So far as the existing evidence goes, the question of the responsibility of this organism for food poisoning is still an open one. ”

“ It must be remembered also that in some outbreaks those persons consuming raw or partly cooked meat have been affected while at the same time others eating well-cooked meat from the same animal have remained exempt; this would seem to indicate the destruction of living bacilli by heat, since the toxic substances formed by these organisms are heat-resistant. The view that a definite infection occurs, is favored, too, by the fact that the blood-serum of affected persons so frequently has an agglutinative action upon the paratyphoid bacillus. ”

“ The interesting case reported by Barber [112] shows that there are other possibilities of food poisoning by formed bacterial poisons. Acute attacks of gastro-enteritis were produced in several individuals by the use of milk containing a poisonous substance elaborated by a white staphylococcus. This staphylococcus occurred in almost pure culture in the udder of the cow from which the milk was derived. The milk when used fresh was harmless and the poison was generated in effective quantities only when the milk stood some hours at room temperature [p.97] before being used. ”

“ The majority of meat poisoning outbreaks that have been bacterially studied in recent years have been traceable to one or another member of this group and not to "ptomain poisoning." (2) Bacteria of the paratyphoid enteritidis group that are culturally alike but agglutinatively dissimilar can, when taken in with the food, give rise to identical clinical symptoms in man. (3) Food poisoning bacteria of this group, when derived directly from diseased animals, seem more likely to be of the Gärtner type (B. enteritidis) than of the B. suipestifer type. ”

“ From the moment of our birth we are constantly exposed to the incessant attacks of innumerable bacteria and to the effects of a large amount of poisonous material formed within our body or introduced from without, and if we survive this ceaseless battle it is due to the powerful weapon we possess in the internal secretion of the ductless glands, especially of the thyroid gland. That this gland possesses very energetic antitoxic properties can be shown by the fact that when it is extirpated animals or persons very readily acquire infectious diseases of all sorts. ”

“ Cellular pathology with its wonderful revelation of the anatomical seat of disease and bacteriology, with its still more wonderful revelation of the external cause of disease, so dazzled the eye and the mind that we forgot that the sensitive animal body behind the attacking microbe had its changes, too, its changes in body chemistry that could not be stated in terms of cells and bacteria. The pendulum is swinging back now to a consideration of the constitution of the body on which the microbe or poison acts, its resistance or immunity, its anaphylaxis or allergie. ”

“ For we must always allow for a certain resistance in all living creatures to disease and death. No doubt, life to a parasite in the body of an animal would not be as easy as in a cultivating liquid contained in a glass vessel. If the inoculating microbe is aerobic, it can only be cultivated in blood by taking away the oxygen from the globules, which retain it with a certain force for their own life. ”

“ The last mentioned carbohydrate preparations possess also the great advantage of preventing an excessive putrefaction of the intestinal contents with its harmful consequences, which tendency is always greater with albuminous food, starchy foods in large quantity tending, as already stated, to produce acid fermentation in the intestines by which many products of albuminous digestion can be destroyed. Against these poisons formed in the 184intestinal tract we possess a natural defense in certain ductless glands, the thyroid and liver, which are degenerated in old people ”

“ The liver also protects the body against the numerous toxic products formed in the stomach and intestines during the process of digestion and assimilation. The most important of these are the carbamins and ammonia salts, which would be injurious to us if the liver did not protect us by converting them into urea. ”

“ Fever, as probably disease in general, serves the ends of nature in the interest of our conservation. In addition to the thyroid, the other ductless glands protect us from infections and intoxications. Thus, the pituitary body which Casselli, [73] Guerrini, [74] Torri, and many others found, as a rule, altered through infectious diseases. Torri noticed a hyperplasia of the chromophile cells of the pituitary body, and disappearance of the colloid from the follicles in the majority of cases of pneumonia, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other infectious diseases. ”

“ The microbe had disappeared. Hens killed after having been thus saved, no longer showed the slightest trace of splenic organisms.
How great is the light which these facts throw upon the phenomenon of life in its relation to external physical conditions, and what important inferences [211] do they warrant as to the influence of external media and conditions upon the life and development of living contagia! There have been great discussions in Germany and France upon a mode of treatment in typhoid fever, which consists in cooling the body of the patient by frequently repeated baths. ”

“ The object in introducing here these remarks on cooking food is to show that it forms an important integral part of the work of digestion, and has a direct bearing on the management of all forms of dyspepsia.
Haste in eating, with imperfect mastication, is a common cause of indigestion in this country. Mastication is the first step in the digestive [p. 446] process. It is important, therefore, that we have good teeth and that we take time to thoroughly masticate our food, for by so doing we prepare it for being acted upon by the juices of the stomach. ”

“ Food introduced into the stomach passes into the intestines, and if it reaches these insufficiently masticated it will present great difficulties for the penetration of the intestinal ferments. Not only will it not be well digested, but as the different ferments cannot well penetrate these compact masses they will putrefy, thus considerably increasing the natural fermentation, in consequence of which a great amount of toxic products and a considerable irritation of the intestinal mucous membrane will result, which may subsequently cause disease. ”

“ I next read the books of Metchnikoff and Chittenden, who showed me just how my ailments came to be. The unassimilated food lies in the colon, and bacteria swarm in it, and the poisons [Pg 17] they produce are absorbed into the system. I had bacteriological examinations made in my own case, and I found that when I was feeling well the number of these toxin-producing germs was about six billions to the ounce of intestinal contents; and when, a few days later, I had a headache, the number was a hundred and twenty billions. ”

“ Method of attaining Economic Assimilation of Nutriment and Immunity from Disease, Muscular Soreness and Fatigue.
(1) Feed only when a distinct appetite has been earned.
(2) Masticate all solid food until it is completely liquefied and excites in an irresistible manner the swallowing reflex or swallowing impulse.
(3) Attention to the act and appreciation of the taste are necessary, meantime, to excite the flow of gastric juice into the stomach to meet the food—as demonstrated by Pawlow. ”

“ When food enters the mouth the process of digestion begins, and all the activities of the glands concerned in digestion are probably at once set in motion. Mastication excites, by reflex action, pancreatic secretion; the acid chyme touches the orifice of the common bile-duct and stimulates the outflow of bile; the neutralized chyme next invites pancreatic digestion. For the integrity of intestinal digestion it is required that mastication and stomach digestion should be normally performed. ”

“ The authorities on thorough mastication also claim that by so doing they are able to do with less food, which is the more readily to be believed, as they are able to digest and absorb everything 344better, their food leaves less residue, and they profit more by what they eat than do fast eaters and bad masticators. ”

“ But we have no right to assume that the everyday decomposition products of the banal bacteria are in all cases without injurious effects. Even though no sharply defined acute form of poisoning may be laid at their door, it does not follow that an irritating or perhaps slightly toxic action of the ordinary decomposition products is altogether absent. Our present knowledge of the nature and degree of danger to be apprehended from the use of spoiled food is imperfect and unsatisfactory. ”

“ The modern school of medicine in its present, bacteria ridden frame of mind or mania, looks upon the bacillus, or microbe, as the sole cause of disease.
The cause, however, is not the bacillus, but rather the impure blood which prepares a fertile soil for the development of those destructive germs.
He who lives strictly in accordance with the rules of hygiene need not fear the bacillus, for man is not born to sickness; he creates sickness for himself by his irrational mode of living. ”