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106
This last contention was mentioned in a circular letter which the
Council had issued to the trade, and its correctness was challenged by the
Metropolitan Association. They were referred to the opinions expressed
by Dr. McFadden in his report to the Local Government Board and by
the Health Commissioners of .New York; but were not convinced,
relying on certain experiments which Prof. Klein made. After
incubating sausages in a moist chamber at 76 deg. Fahr. during the day
for three days, transferring them to a refrigerator at night, Prof. Klein
examined them with the result that when 26.24 grains of boric preservative
per pound had been added, there was no difference to be noticed in
the bacterial character between the sausage material and the incubated
sausage; there was no offensive smell to be noticed and the sausage
looked perfectly normal.
In order to demonstrate that the Council were correct in their statement,
a series of experiments were carried out at my suggestion by
Dr. J. M. Bernstein, Lecturer in Bacteriology at the Westminster
Medical School. Fresh pork was obtained and varying quantities of
boric acid were added to parts of it after it had been minced, some parts
having it added at once, others after a lapse of one, two or three days, and
a special series of experiments were carried out with the amount of the
acid in this particular case. In other experiments, certain pathogenic
organisms (B. coli, B. enteritidis, &c.) were added. The deductions
which may be drawn from these experiments were, shortly:—
(a) That it did not prevent decomposition proceeding, but that
it prevented the development of odour so that it prevented persons
detecting that the meat was bad.
(b) The growth of harmless organisms was checked while the
harmful ones were allowed to grow and produce harmful products.
(c) When boric acid was added to meat which was beginning to
smell the odour was diminished and the meat might have been used
without detection for making sausage meat.
(d) Very large quantities of boric acid would be required
to check the growth of bacilli. (Prof. Max Gruber, International
Congress of Hygiene, 1907, reporting on the subject
stated (Vol. II. Proceedings, p. 286) that "boric acid is an
inadmissible preservative for meat because even in large amounts
(2 to 5 per cent.) it is not able to inhibit the toxin producing
organisms or to kill them ").
(e) By the addition of (0.3 per cent.) boric acid stale meat can
be used—even after some weeks—for the making of sausages and
also meat which has already begun to putrefy, without the
consumer being able to tell by the sense of taste or smell that the
sausage was a source of danger.