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Tinned Food.—Every now and then cases of poisoning from tinned food
occur. The symptoms may vary from simple nausea, or diarrhoea, to vomiting,
and prostration and collapse. Tinned shellfish such as lobster is more
liable to cause serious symptoms than tinned fish, such as salmon, and tinned
meats still less frequently give rise to untoward symptoms, except meats into
the composition of which pork enters.
The reason tinned foods so frequently cause trouble when eaten, especially
if they have been kept open a few hours during the hot weather before consumption,
is that so much of the tinned foods in the cheaper markets are
derived from old ship's stores. A ship upon sailing lays in certain stores of
tinned foods, it often happens that these are not touched on the voyage, and
they may go another voyage or not, but ultimately they are sold as old stores.
The tins are then cleansed, recoloured, revarnished, and relabelled with clean
fresh labels and resold. So again and again quantities of tinned foods may be
resold year after year, and some of these come upon the general market and
are sold in seaport and inland towns. Considerable quantities must find their
way on to the London markets and be retailed by small grocers in the poorer
neighbourhoods.