Abstract
THE difficulty of drawing inferences of value in practical life from experimental work on animals or from observation on man could not be better illustrated than in the vexed question as to the legitimacy of allowing preservatives, especially boron preparations, in human foods. It is known that these preparations, when given steadily and persistently to animals, provoke renal inflammation; it is commonly agreed, notwithstanding occasional medical testimony to the contrary, that they may be irritant to the human alimentary tract, and that they should be barred for young children, for invalids, and for sick persons. It is also agreed that the elimination of a single dose of boric acid is slow, occupying five or six days, and that, therefore, most of us who live in towns are probably never free from boric acid in our systems from youth to old age. It is, furthermore, common knowledge that boric acid or its salts are used largely in cream, butter, liquid eggs, margarine, potted meats, and are dusted over imported bacon and ham; and that a person indulging in a varied diet may not impossibly, day by day, take an amount of boric acid which, even by the defendants of boron preservatives in food, would be regarded as inadvisable, if not actually injurious.
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Preservatives in Foods. Nature 115, 217–218 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115217a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115217a0