美国国家公共电台 NPR How A 19th Century Chemist Took On The Food Industry With A Grisly Experiment

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

We're going to take you back now to the late 1800s, when eating food in the U.S. meant taking a calculated risk. The country was growing. People were moving into cities. And industrialization gave food producers new, sometimes dangerous ways to stretch their products.

DEBORAH BLUM: They were very inventive with fakery back then because there were no rules against it, right? It's completely legal to do whatever.

CHANG: That's author Deborah Blum. Her new book explores that era before the U.S. enacted¹ food safety rules. My co-host Ari Shapiro talked with her about it.

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE²: The book is called "The Poison Squad³: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade For Food Safety At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century." I start by asking Deborah Blum what someone living around 1900 might find in everyday foods like coffee, candy or milk.

BLUM: Milk was a great example of just how bad things could get for a number of reasons. One, dairymen seeking to sort of stretch their profits would thin it with water. It wasn't always clean water. At one point, there was actually a case in Indiana which it was pond water.

SHAPIRO: Pond water?

BLUM: Pond water. And it was noticed when the family found worms wiggling in the bottle.

SHAPIRO: And pond water was actually some of the safer stuff that milk was contaminated with.

BLUM: That's exactly right because once you had thinned the milk, you had to reconstitute it in all kinds of weird⁵ ways. People put chalk dust in it. People put plaster dust in it. People put weird coal tar⁴ dyes, and sometimes toxic⁶ dyes like yellow lead, to kind of make it more golden again instead of kind of grayish or bluish.

And then, because it was prone⁷ to rot - this is before pasteurization and before refrigeration - they would dump preservatives⁸ in it. And the most popular one was formaldehyde, which is an embalming⁹ compound.

SHAPIRO: Which is not good for humans to ingest?

BLUM: No. And so you actually go out and can see newspaper headlines around the country during this period with embalmed¹⁰ milk scandals.

SHAPIRO: So along comes the protagonist¹¹ of your story, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley. And his title is chief chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Why did he care so much about this issue?

BLUM: I've always thought of him as kind of a holy roller chemist, right? You have - Harvey Washington Wiley was the son of an itinerant¹² preacher and farmer in Indiana. He was - father was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. He was really raised - I mean, it's a real mid-19th century kind of childhood. He was really raised to think of what he did needing to be a higher calling. And he would describe chemistry that way - chemistry in the service of good.

And so when he became the chief chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture - I mean, this is at a period where there is no FDA, there is no consumer protection agency. This tiny group of chemists that he commanded at the Department of Agriculture was it on food safety. He took up that cause.

SHAPIRO: And your book's title, "The Poison Squad," comes from a project that he undertook that really just shows his commitment to this. Describe what the Poison Squad was.

BLUM: Well, this is an experiment you could never do today because he basically goes out and recruits other people at the Department of Agriculture, especially young clerks, to volunteer to dine very dangerously. And so the idea of the Poison Squad was that three free meals a day, seven days a week, super fancy meals. They're cooked by a professional chef. All the ingredients are amazing.

And the only catch is you have to agree that half of you, at any given period in this experiment, are going to be adding capsules that contain suspect food additives¹³. And the other thing about it - when you think, is this crazy or what? You are testing suspected toxic compounds on human volunteers - was that he felt that was the only way he could deal with this. You had this rising tide of really dangerous food additives. There was no safety regulation. How do I make a case that perhaps this is not a good idea? I'll just test it on people. And so he did.

SHAPIRO: To no one's surprise, if you feed people formaldehyde or arsenic¹⁴ or lead, they will get sick. And when you demonstrate that, why does it still remain so difficult to outlaw¹⁵ formaldehyde or arsenic or lead in food? Why was it just not an obvious thing that everybody got on board with right away?

BLUM: And doesn't that sound like the most logical response? Oh, look; you've poisoned people. Let's get that out of the food supply.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

BLUM: The food industry had been organizing itself to fight regulation probably at the point that Wiley starts these experiments in 1902. He had been advocating, advocating, advocating and working with congressmen to try to get some kind of basic consumer protection regulations out there - if nothing else, labeling.

And as he does these experiments, and as they catch national attention, which they did - they were front page news. There were songs and, you know, musical numbers about them. Everyone is suddenly realizing that there is a lot of bad stuff in their food. There's just a lot of bad stuff in their food.

And so there's media pushback - right? - in which, suddenly, congressmen who are on the side of food business are getting offered more money, and the food industry actually organizes. They create a food manufacturers association and coalesce¹⁶ against making sure this doesn't happen. And they were phenomenally effective.

SHAPIRO: And yet, despite these long-fought fights that spanned decades, today, there isn't lead and formaldehyde and arsenic in food the way that there was a hundred years ago. Progress really was made.

BLUM: Yes. Once the first food safety law - that passed in 1906, two years after Wiley finished his famous Poison Squad experiments. Once that law went into place, we started pulling stuff out. Formaldehyde went out. Salicylic acid went out. Borax went out. Arsenic went out, right? You really see government stepping up for some of these extremely dangerous compounds.

SHAPIRO: Is this book just one big argument in favor of government regulation?

BLUM: In part, because it certainly should be a reminder¹⁷ that before government regulation, food was a constant unknown and often terrifying risk to American consumers and put our lives at risk.

But it's also, I hope, just a good story. It's a story of something that I love. I love these kinds of stories. It's a story of a single person who changes the conversation, right? And I think that's really important, too. We need to remember that someone who is focused, and even obsessive¹⁸, and who stands up relentlessly¹⁹ for an issue can actually make a difference. So I hope it works on all those levels.

SHAPIRO: Deborah Blum's new book is called "The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade For Food Safety At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century." Thanks for talking with us.

BLUM: Thank you so much for having me on.

1 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 squad   

n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组

参考例句：

• The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
• A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。

4 tar   

n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于

参考例句：

• The roof was covered with tar.屋顶涂抹了一层沥青。
• We use tar to make roads.我们用沥青铺路。

5 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

6 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

7 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

8 preservatives   

n.防腐剂( preservative的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The juice contains no artificial preservatives. 这种果汁不含人工防腐剂。
• Meat spoils more quickly without preservatives. 不加防腐剂，肉会坏得快。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 embalming   

v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的现在分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气

参考例句：

• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming. 尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were experts at preserving the bodies of the dead by embalming them with special lotions. 他们具有采用特种药物洗剂防止尸体腐烂的专门知识。 来自辞典例句

10 embalmed   

adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气

参考例句：

• Many fine sentiments are embalmed in poetry. 许多微妙的情感保存于诗歌中。 来自辞典例句
• In books, are embalmed the greatest thoughts of all ages. 伟大思想古今有，载入书中成不朽。 来自互联网

11 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

12 itinerant   

adj.巡回的；流动的

参考例句：

• He is starting itinerant performance all over the world.他正在世界各地巡回演出。
• There is a general debate nowadays about the problem of itinerant workers.目前，针对流动工人的问题展开了普遍的争论。

13 additives   

n.添加剂( additive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• chemical additives in petrol 汽油中的化学添加剂
• It'says on the packet that these crisps contain no additives. 包装上说这些炸薯片不含添加剂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 arsenic   

n.砒霜，砷；adj.砷的

参考例句：

• His wife poisoned him with arsenic.他的妻子用砒霜把他毒死了。
• Arsenic is a poison.砒霜是毒药。

15 outlaw   

n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法

参考例句：

• The outlaw hid out in the hills for several months.逃犯在山里隐藏了几个月。
• The outlaw has been caught.歹徒已被抓住了。

16 coalesce   

v.联合，结合，合并

参考例句：

• And these rings of gas would then eventually coalesce and form the planets.这些气体环最后终于凝结形成行星。
• They will probably collide again and again until they coalesce.他们可能会一次又一次地发生碰撞，直到他们合并。

17 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

18 obsessive   

adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的

参考例句：

• Some people are obsessive about cleanliness.有些人有洁癖。
• He's becoming more and more obsessive about punctuality.他对守时要求越来越过分了。

19 relentlessly   

adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断

参考例句：

• The African sun beat relentlessly down on his aching head. 非洲的太阳无情地照射在他那发痛的头上。
• He pursued her relentlessly, refusing to take 'no' for an answer. 他锲而不舍地追求她，拒不接受“不”的回答。