The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

In the significant migrations of residents from rural farm communities to urban centers, the demand for food in locations without agrarian access created the necessity for consumers to purchase foods they may have once grown for themselves. In turn, this led to the growth of the food manufacturing industry. Food companies now needed to devise a way to source, process, and package their wares for distribution across the United States.

The adulteration of food products sold in the United States was an open secret among manufacturers whose goal was to meet demands for popular foodstuffs at the lowest possible production cost. It was common practice for manufacturers to package and sell a product which had little or nothing in common with what was promised on its label. Powdered foods in particular, like baking goods and spices, were cut with other ingredients or replaced altogether, as in the case of flour mixed with chalk, or ground coconut shells sold as ground pepper. Arguing that genuine, pure food products were too expensive to procure and process for profit, manufacturers justified adulteration as necessary to keep their retail prices low and remain competitive in the market.

In this period, refrigeration technologies were not advanced enough to maintain temperature consistently throughout transport, and most American homes would have been considered fortunate if they possessed an ice box, the late 19th and early 20th century version of a cooler. Products which would rot or spoil, especially animal products, were adulterated with preservatives or masking agents to prevent loss of profit when shipments reached their destination.

Of chief concern to Dr. Wiley was his belief that consumers had the right to know what they were purchasing. While he would later focus on assessing the harm that could result from contact with food additives, his initial advocacy began with calls for transparency. Wiley was also aware that while some products might be relatively harmless in smaller doses, most foods were adulterated, thereby compounding the actual amount of these chemicals one might ingest in a single sitting. He was concerned about the potential long-term effects of these repeated, uninterrupted exposures.

Publications issued by the Bureau of Chemistry were not readily available to the public unless one requested a copy of the document or read about their contents in the press. Dr. Wiley felt that it was crucial that the American public be apprised of what was in their food. For that reason, he hired Alex Wedderburn, a science writer, to compose copy with the purpose of communicating the research findings of the chemistry division to a more public audience. Dr. Wiley’s supervisor, Julius Morton, incensed by Wedderburn’s forceful indictments of food manufacturers, dismissed Wedderburn. Moreover, Morton began reducing the budget for Wiley’s food purity studies, requiring Wiley to appeal to him for every purchase in the department.

During the Spanish-American war in Cuba, the United States government contracted with slaughterhouses to provide soldiers canned meat as part of their food rations. When the soldiers opened these cans, they found scraps of low-quality, cast-off portions of meat, wallowing in green sludge and actively decaying. Many soldiers reported the distinct smell of formaldehyde upon opening the cans. Serving in Cuba, future President Theodore Roosevelt witnessed the ubiquitous rot present in the meat intended for American soldiers. Roosevelt chastised the government and the meat manufacturers for what he believed to be so insulting and dishonorable an oversight.

The public was outraged, and Congress convened a hearing into the matter, asking Dr. Wiley to evaluate the meat that was provided to the Army. There were few remaining samples of the actual meat sent to Cuba, as most of it was discarded as dangerous and unpalatable. One of Dr. Wiley’s most revelatory discoveries was that the meat so broadly attested to be unfit for consumption shared so much in common with what was available to American consumers on grocery shelves. It was believed that the heat and humidity of the Cuban climate sped up the decomposition process of the meat; under similar conditions, Dr. Wiley reasoned, the meat consumed by consumers would likely follow the same course. Dr. Wiley, dedicated to reporting only what he can establish with rigorous scientific testing, acknowledged that he could find no trace of formaldehyde in the meat, but he did discover that the soldiers were also suffering metal poisoning stemming from the seepage of metals from the cans into the meat. Despite the attempts at preservation, the meat was rotten, old, and of terrible quality. It was stringy, fatty, tough, and without any nutritional value. Wiley confirmed that the soldiers who consumed it contracted bacterial infections as a result of their exposure to the meat. His testimony legitimized the medical, physiological aspect of what the soldiers reported. There were no laws in place to protect consumers, and therefore no incentive for the beef industry to supply safe, quality meat. Although they cheated the government by accepting federal funds for inedible product and sickened soldiers, the beef manufacturers could not be fined and were not vulnerable to prosecution or liability. Moreover, they could not be sued by consumers and were protected by their powerful allies. Both the food industry and the chemical industries which produced the chemicals used by the food industry were pouring their money into making sure their business practices faced no obstructions.