View report page

4
and secluded sites as to render any contamination with animal matters "highly improbable";
furthermore, samples of the ice were found by the " Lancet," pure, sparkling, and clean, and the
conclusion was drawn that "no harm is likely to accrue even when the ice is consumed, as it is when
placed in beverages for cooling purposes," though a word of caution is given incidentally with regard
to the lead-dissolving powers of ice-water. In the last few years, however, exception has from time
to time been taken to the use of natural ice. Thus the reader of a paper which appears in Cold
Storage, July, 1904, expresses what is now coming to be a general feeling about ice of unknown
origin, when he exclaims, "It may have had a past" ; while nearly twenty years ago a first note of
warning was sounded in Germany as to using only artificial ice made from pure water for purposes
of consumption in beverages, or in cases in which the ice was brought into contact with food consumed
in the raw state.1 In the large American cities the need for insisting upon the use of such
ice for the purpose in question is now, it would appear, fairly well recognised, indeed, even in some
small seaside resorts on the English coast, which chance to be near centres of the fishing industry,5
the use of pure ice is quite a matter of course. In London, however, though there are factories
capable of producing some three or four hundred tons of artificial ice per diem, the quantity of
natural ice consumed or brought in contact with articles of food still probably exceeds that of
artificial ice.
The rapid growth of cold storage as applied to food-stuffs dates from the early eighties. At the
present time meat, dairy produce and fruit are refrigerated on a vast scale. Frozen meat has slowly
but surely grown in popularity, and during the first six months of 1904, upwards of 2,000,000 cwts.
of fresh beef from the United States, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand, and some 1,700,000 cwts.
of fresh mutton from Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia were imported into this country.
In 1903 the ships engaged in the frozen meat trade were possessed of capacity for nearly 10,000,000
carcases, and the cold stores of London were capable of accommodating some 2,500,000 carcases of
sheep alone. Pork, bacon, and game are, of course, also largely stored, and the annual export of
rabbits from Australia now amounts to about 12,000,000. During the first half of the present
year, some 800,000 cwts. of refrigerated butter, some 700,000 cwts. of cheese, some £600,000 worth
of bananas, and some £600,000 worth of eggs were imported into this country.
The trade in preserved eggs has grown very rapidly of late; at the beginning of the
present year Dr. Brown made inquiries in Bermondsey which showed that in that borough there were
in store 559 cases, each containing twelve "great hundreds," i.e., twelve times one hundred and twenty
eggs; but these figures are dwarfed by those from American cities. At the end of June, 1904, there
were reputed to be 700,000 cases (containing thirty dozen eggs each) in cold storage in Chicago, and in
New York there were over 500,000 such cases, the total " egg storage capacity under refrigeration"
in the United States exceeding 2,500,000 cases of thirty dozen each. During the early part of the
year 1904 there was great demand for eggs in New York, and several car loads of "California
eggs "were brought into the city. "These California eggs were really Kansas eggs, which had
been shipped to California in April last, placed there in cold storage to be shipped across the continent
in February of next year, and then sold at high prices, the owners realising a handsome
profit although they had to pay 424 dollars freightage per car." 3
The trade in refrigerated milk now bids fair to become important, and that in fruit is, of
course, a well-established one, not only apples, pears, and bananas, but refrigerated nectarines,
peaches, grapes, plums, tomatoes, green peas, French beans, etc., being now brought into this
country from overseas. Again, in the preservation of flowers, and particularly of lilies, cold is being
employed, and it has even been suggested that it would be of use in connection with the cultivation
of dwarf trees. Considerable quantities of frozen fish are exported from this country, more particularly
to South America, and 320,000 lbs. of salmon were sent to England from Canada in 1903.
Furs, furniture, timber1 and hops are, now cold stored, while freezing apparatus is extensively
employed in the manufacture of ice-creams, confectionery, cocoa, chocolate, wine, beer, and dairy
produce. Cold is used in hospitals, mortuaries, and skating rinks, in tunnel making5 and mining
and in pit sinking; and it has, it is said, been employed for drying clothes in laundries, for cooling
gelatine for photographic plates, for preserving mulberry leaves, and for other purposes in connection
with silkworm culture, and quite recently it is reported to have been used by beekeepers,
who have placed bees in cold storage to prevent loss by winter swarming. In America it is laid on
like water or gas in houses, it is used for supplying ice-water in public fountains, as at Pittsburg,
and for "town cooling," as at Baltimore. In Germany attention has been especially directed it is
said to the question of cold storage in connection with fortresses.
1 By Fraenkel in his paper in the Zeitschrift iiir Hygiene, 1885. A specimen form of notice issued to warn
the public against the use of impure ice in beverages, and for cooling butter, etc., is given in Schlacht-und-Viehhofe
by Dr. Oscar Schwartz, p. 185.
A writer in Ice and Cold Storage, April, 1903, observes: " The surprising thing is that the ratio of natural
ice sold year by year in the metropolis remains so high, while in every outport it falls away toward vanishing point.
. . . Of course," he adds, " trawling and artificial ice making go so much together that the expansion of the one
may account for the swelling of the other in seaside places ; but even in inland towns artificial ice has made iti way
in a much greater degree than in London."
3 Cold Storage, loth March, 1904.
4 With a view to preventing the ravages of insects.
5 Artificial refrigeration was found invaluable in boring the Simpion tunnel; hot water flowing into the
tnnnel at a temperature from 112° to 140° F., rendered work impossible until the flowing water was made to supply
power for a freezing plant, which made the conditions endurable.