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60
ARSENIC IN APPLES.
Certain apples arriving in the Port have been alleged to have caused arsenical
poisoning. It has been, therefore, advisable to make analyses of any apples
showing marked deposit in the stem pit. This pit is a likely indicator of danger
on inspection. The circumstance points to an unusual chain of events in which
the meteorological conditions under which the early crop in certain districts was
gathered, were the predominant factor.
The intimate relation between mercantile and public health interests in this
matter, both of which drive in the same direction, will ensure for the future a rigid
scrutiny at the point where remedy and prevention can be best carried out, namely,
the orchards of production.
The danger is, I believe, small, now that it is brought to light, and transitory.
But the presence of arsenic on foodstuffs in varying quantity, even if small in view
of possible immediately harmful quantities, is intolerable. Full safeguards must
be arranged at the proper place—the orchard.
Meanwhile apple crops from any place will be closely watched.
The following letter, which is self-explanatory, was sent to the High Commissioners
for the Dominion of Canada, Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand,
Union of South Africa, Dominion of Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia.
Agents-General for New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland,
Western Australia, Tasmania, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia.
Consul-General for the United States of America.
Medical Officers of Health for Ballarat, Melbourne, Adelaide, Port Adelaide,
Brisbane, Fremantle, Perth, Hobart, Queenstown, Auckland, New Plymouth,
Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Cape Town.
It appeared to your Medical Officer that the significance of the contamination
could not be too widely circulated in all possible countries of origin.
16th December, 1925.
Sir,
I venture to ask your help in the following serious matter.
You may have noticed that certain imported apples at present on the English market
have been found to convey doses of Arsenic to the consumer.
I am given to understand that meteorological conditions are somewhat responsible for
the residual arsenical and other contamination of apples; if this be so in fact, a course of
prevention may be found as simple as the original spraying—namely, a final washing of the
apple on the tree.
In the Fruit World Annual, January number, published in Melbourne, are articles and
advertisements advocating Lead Arsenate as a repeated spray for apples during growth;
such sprays are possibly in world-wide use.
Considering the subtle character of lead poisoning and of arsenical poisoning and our
past experience in England of severe detriment to the public health from persistent ingestion
of very small quantities of either of these metals in contamination of food, I have to bring
to your notice the importance to fruit growers of immediately making their practice in spraying
coincide with public health necessities.
Crops of fruit at present on the tree or any future crops which on arrival here give more
than an infinitesimal—an absolutely neglible amount of arsenic lead or other metallic contamination,
must be subjected to such drastic action as will of necessity severely affect every
person concerned in the trade in such apples.
The forestalling of any such procedure should be undertaken at the point of effective,
and it would seem, economic prevention—the orchard, and at once insisted on.
I would suggest that methods of cleaning away the residual arsenic lead-arsenate or other
contamination before packing, or alternatively abandonment of the dangerous contaminating
process, are as much matters for the attention of the expert grower as prevention of the
codlin moth grub.
I feel sure you will permit me to express these opinions and to convey a warning which
must apply to every crop on the tree at present or in future, that may be destined for British
consumption. The contamination of apples will in future be examined with regard to every
consignment from the standpoint that whatever be the growers' methods the eventual packed
fruit must be in a natural state—contamination free.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Sgd.) W. M. WILLOUGHBY,
Medical Officer of Health,
Port of London.
CANNED SPINACH.
Letters were received from Plymouth, Dover, Deptford, Exeter, Harwich,
Great Yarmouth, and Liverpool, showing that the action of your Worshipful Committee
in the matter of tinned spinach would receive every support from those
districts in securing uniformity of procedure.