THE POISON SQUAD

And you thought your job was hard. Maybe it is, but how much rotting food does your boss make you eat?

If you have a food-poisoning-related problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them . . . and if they’re not too full or barfing too much . . . maybe you can hire the Poison Squad.

Yes, we’re going to hear the story of some guys who probably had one of the roughest, yet coolest-sounding, gigs in medical history, we promise. But first, we need to take a moment to talk about food poisoning.

We’ve known that food can be a potential threat since ancient times. Food poisoning has been known throughout history as “Death in the Pot,” and scientists have found evidence of various foodborne illnesses in mummies, bog bodies, skeletons, and of course, coprolites. Justin—before you ask—that’s fossilized feces.

Okay, I just feverishly searched the Internet, and as far as I can tell, there’s never been a punk band called “The Coprolites.” So I’m calling dibs right now. DIBS. There, it’s in a book, so that’s the law. So . . . uhh . . . do any of y’all play drums?

TUMMY TROUBLES OF THE ANCIENTS

In the beginning, we probably figured out that food caused illness, as well as which foods to avoid through trial and error, and by watching what foods animals avoided. And then of course, according to the Old Testament, God told Moses which animals were “clean” to eat, as well as what could be considered food-safety tips—which we now know as the Jewish dietary rules.

Hippocrates noted that clean water tasted better, and so he developed a water filter that he used for himself and for his patients as well. He even boiled water to clean it, which was pretty revolutionary for the time considering that he would have had no knowledge of any microorganisms or substances that he couldn’t see or smell in the water.

The ancient Greeks also knew better than to eat any animal that was diseased—we’ve known to avoid spoiled meat since prehistory. This did not, as some have erroneously believed, lead to people spicing spoiled meat to disguise its flavor and pass it off as fresh. In fact, there are laws dating back hundreds of years that prohibit adulterating food and drink to make it appear safe, or more appealing, to sell it. Pliny the Elder even warned of wines that were tainted with noxious herbs to make them look brighter and more flavorful.

While we used our noses to ferret out possibly dangerous food and drink for many centuries, we didn’t know why those things made us sick. That mystery didn’t begin to unravel until the microscope came along in the 1600s, allowing anyone interested to see all the secret little germs hiding beneath our noses. After that discovery, it was another couple hundred years until Louis Pasteur recognized that those little germs in food probably caused illness, and developed heating food, or pasteurization, to kill them.

Sydnee’s Fun Medical Fact

Hiding spoiled meat with spices makes even less sense when you consider just how wildly expensive those spices were in ancient times. According to economics professor John Munro, a pound of ginger in ancient Rome would have cost roughly 5,000 days’ wages. Anybody who could afford that could, obviously, afford to just buy some new meat.

DON’T LICK THAT IGUANA

There are many examples of foodborne illness, but we have to start somewhere. So, let’s talk about the one we isolated and blamed for puking first: Salmonella. This is a bacteria in the Enterobacter family, and is most famously responsible for typhoid fever. Well, okay, “famously” is a word some coauthors of this book might use, and then immediately realize why people think they are unpleasant dinner company. There are multiple strains of Salmonella bacteria, but enterica is the one derived from underdone chicken—also known as “the one you’re probably terrified of if you’ve ever watched a Lysol commercial.” While it’s true that poultry is a big culprit, so are reptiles. Not eating them, necessarily, so much as touching them a lot. (Specific reptiles to keep at arm’s length include the green iguana and the red-eared slider turtle.)

This rather unfortunate side effect of reptile ownership actually led to the U.S. FDA issuing what was called the “four-inch law” in 1975. It dictated that any turtles sold in the United States had to have a carapace length of at least four inches, because then it would be harder for a kid to stick the turtle in his or her mouth.

That’s only for parents who are raising quitters. I’m gonna teach our girls they can fit any size turtle in their mouths if they just believe in themselves.

The symptoms of food poisoning are fairly well known to us all, but in case you are the single lucky human who has never experienced it, you can expect nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea. It starts about twelve to seventy-two hours after you become infected, and lasts about four to seven days. Usually, there’s not much to do in terms of treatment, other than to stay hydrated and ride it out.

Nobody wants to experience that, but nobody wants to throw food out either, right? So, humanity started fighting back against food spoilage.

NOW WITH EXTRA STRYCHNINE!

Heating and cooling were simple enough ways to safeguard food in the home, but what food manufacturers really needed were ways to preserve food for sale. Great idea . . . except no one had any idea what was helpful or safe in terms of chemical additives. So, in the early 1900s, bacteria got a new partner in their never-ending quest to make food dangerous: humans. Many packaged goods ended up riddled with preservatives that had never been tested for safety. Pesticides were being used on produce without any thought of what they may do in human bodies. Chemicals such as borax, formaldehyde, and strychnine were added to meat to preserve it, and some foods were stuffed with fillers, including chalk or sawdust, to fool the consumer into thinking it was fresher or more wholesome.

These unregulated products obviously didn’t have modern-day-style labels to warn the consumers of what might be inside, and these rogue preservatives were wreaking havoc on the health and safety of the American people. The problem was that no one knew how to separate the hazardous preservatives and pesticides from the harmful ones. But who was willing to try them out and see what was making everyone sick?

DR. WILEY TO THE RESCUE

Doctor Harvey Wiley was up to the task. Well, not so much the man himself—he wasn’t about to eat potential poisons—but he was willing to live with the guilt of convincing other people to do it. We ask you, dear reader, isn’t that true heroism?

A medical doctor from Indiana with additional training and education in chemistry and food science, Dr. Wiley was appointed to the position of Chief Chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1882. Initially, he was working mainly on sugar chemistry and investigating sorghum as a possible sugar source for the United States, but by the turn of the century, food safety was taking center stage. Congress wanted to know if the various compounds we were putting into foods to preserve them were safe. So, in 1905, they gave Dr. Wiley $5,000 to figure it out. He took the money and created what he termed the “poison squad.”

A note on Dr. Harvey Wiley: He was smart, worked hard to improve food safety, and was a good scientist. It bears mentioning, though, that he was also a terrible chauvinist. Dr. Wiley believed that women lacked the brain power of men, and refused to allow them to participate in any aspect of the process. Women were not even allowed to serve as cooks, as he felt that they were too dumb to even poison correctly. He was also fired from a position at Purdue University for riding a bicycle, but that seems less egregious.

I briefly floated the idea to Sydnee that the previous paragraph could have been a “fun fact.” It . . . did not go well.

The first thing Dr. Wiley needed to do was find some patsies . . . uhh, willing subjects. He advertised for “twelve young clerks, vigorous and voracious.” Once people began to respond, he had an in-depth screening process for them to pass. They all also had to pass the civil-service exam and demonstrate that they were of “high moral character.”

In addition, interviews with family and friends ensured that all of the volunteers had reputations for “sobriety and reliability.” The lucky chosen would be asked to pledge for a year to only eat what was given to them. Even if it had, you know, poison in it.

The surprising thing? It worked. Men were actually eager to volunteer for something called “the poison squad.” Not only did they volunteer, but they sent letters to Dr. Wiley practically begging him to pick them for his experiments. Here is an example of one such letter:

Dear Sir:

I have read in the paper of your experiments on diet. I have a stomach that can stand anything. I have a stomach that will surprise you. I am afflicted with 7 diseases. Never went to a doctor for 15 years. They told me 15 years ago that I could not live 8 months. What do you think of it? My stomach can hold anything.

So, the doctor gathered his subjects, and the tests commenced. Before dinner, as is customary at all the finest restaurants, the diners’ vital signs were taken, and they submitted some, well, samples.

She means pee-pee and poo-poo.

And maybe blood.

It was all a very elegant affair, twelve well-dressed young men sitting at nicely-set tables dining together. The men were all healthy (at the outset), and over the course of what would eventually be five years, they were fed various meals laced with borax, sulfuric acid, saltpeter, copper sulfate, and formaldehyde.

DINING ON DISASTER

Over time, the squad members were given higher doses of each poison and then carefully examined. The doctor recorded their weights; took blood, urine, and hair samples; and monitored their vital signs carefully. The men reported their symptoms as well, especially as they increased in severity with escalating doses. Inevitably, they got pretty sick, and some tried to drop out. The doctor had to bargain with the squad to get them to finish out the borax trial, which was especially brutal.

Over the course of five years, the tests continued with different volunteers as needed. Each of the possible poisons were tried, and the squad took the challenge as long as they were able. By 1907, many members were described as being “on a slow approach toward death.” The experiments ended, the findings were presented to Congress (and the media), and the outrage that ensued led to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. This ensured that consumers would be informed as to what was in the food they bought, and that preservatives and additives had to be held to certain safety standards.

It was so closely linked to the trials of the poison squad that the Pure Food and Drug Act was initially known as the “Wiley Act.” Eventually, though, Roosevelt took so much credit for it that Wiley lost his top billing.

At least he could comfort himself with the knowledge his work lead to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration, food safety guidelines, and his eventually being known as “the father of the FDA.”

POISONOUS MELODIES

How much did people love the poison squad? It was the subject of at least two different songs, the lyrics of which you’ll find reprinted below:

Respectfully Dedicated to the Department of Agriculture By S. W. Gillilan

O we’re the merriest herd of hulks

that ever the world has seen;

We don’t shy off from your rough

on rats or even from Paris green:

We’re on the hunt for a toxic dope

That’s certain to kill, sans fail.

But ‘tis a tricky, elusive thing and

knows we are on its trail;

For all the things that could kill

we’ve downed in many a gruesome wad,

And still we’re gaining a pound a day,

for we are the Pizen Squad.

On Prussic acid we break our fast;

we lunch on a morphine stew;

We dine with a matchhead consomme,

drink carbolic acid brew;

Corrosive sublimate tones us up

like laudanum. ketchup rare,

While tyro-toxicon condiments

are wholesome as mountain air.

Thus all the “deadlies” we double-dare

to put us beneath the sod;

We’re death-immunes and we’re proud

as proud—Hooray for the Pizen Squad!

As sung by Lew Dockstader—in His Minstrel Company, Washington, D. C., week of October 4, 1903.

If ever you should visit the Smithsonian Institute,
Look out that Professor Wiley doesn’t

make you a recruit.

He’s got a lot of fellows there that tell

him how they feel,

They take a batch of poison every time

they eat a meal.

For breakfast they get cyanide of liver,

coffin shaped,

For dinner, undertaker’s pie, all trimmed

with crepe;

For supper, arsenic fritters, fried in

appetizing shade,

And late at night they get a prussic

acid lemonade.

(Chorus)

They may get over it, but they’ll never

look the same.

That kind of a bill of fare would drive

most men insane.

Next week he’ll give them moth balls,

à la Newburgh, or else plain.

They may get over it, but they’ll never

look the same.

Unsatisfied with being a scientific pioneer, chauvinist, and cycling rebel, Wiley was also a poet.
Here’s his ode to food safety.

We sit at a table delightfully spread

And teeming with good things to eat

And daintily finger the cream-tinted bread

Just needing to make it complete.

A film of the butter so yellow and sweet

Well suited to make every minute

A dread of delight.

And yet while we eat

We cannot help asking “What’s in it?”

Oh, maybe this bread contains alum and chalk

Or sawdust chopped up very fine

Or gypsum in powder about which they talk

Terra alba just out of the mine.

And our faith in the butter is apt to be weak

For we haven’t a good place to pin it

Annato’s so yellow and beef fat so sleek

Oh, I wish I could know what is in it.