Inflammation in Eggs

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 36.

Inflammation in Eggs.

THERE is a condition of the egg, little known, which considerably impairs its sanitary value as an article of food. Soon after it became the practice to transport eggs in large quantities and to long distances by railway trains, it was found on their arrival that adhesion had taken place between the membranes of the yolk and those of the shell, so that the yolk could not be turned out of the shell unbroken. On examination by experienced pathologists, this was found to be the result of true inflammation; the material of the adhesion was found to be precisely the same as that of the plastic exudation in inflammation of the lungs or bowels. It will at first seem absurd to speak of inflammation in such an unformed mass as an egg; but this arises from our forgetting that, structureless and unorganized as it seems, the egg, even when fresh-laid, is a living being, and capable of disease from external causes. The cause of this inflammation is undoubtedly the shaking and friction from the motion of the cars, and it cannot but render the egg more or less unhealthy, as the products of inflammation can never be as salutary in food as those of healthy growth.—Bulletin of the Tennessee Board of Health.