Dangers Attached to Eating Raw Foods and Fruit Skins

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 5, 1908

Dangers Attached to Eating Raw Foods and Fruit Skins

PROFESSOR METCHNIKOFF, in his Harben lectures delivered at King's College, London, on the “Hygiene of the Alimentary Canal” (reported in the Lancet, June 2, 1906), warns us of the perils of eating certain vegetables and fruits unless previously boiled.

The professor said: “Among fruits, it was principally strawberries which introduced parasites, ova, and infectious germs into the intestinal canal. It was therefore necessary to boil them. Even cherries, although growing on trees and far from the soil, should be carefully scalded or boiled, because the birds which took a bite out of them frequently contaminated them with contagious matter.

“As it could not be doubted that salad, radishes, and other raw vegetables transmitted entozoa and pathogenic microbes, their surveillance from a hygienic point of view became indispensable. Washing these vegetables, even with boiled water, was not sufficient, and it was necessary at least to scald them with boiling water, or better still, to boil them.”

Appendicitis, he declared, was frequently caused by bites, from intestinal worms lodging in the cæcum, carrying microbes into the tissues of the appendix. The eggs of the worms adhere to the raw vegetables, and when introduced into the alimentary canal, afterward develop. Hydatis may be caused in the same manner.—Selected.