History of food safety
It is likely that the first prehistoric people to enjoy a meal of roasted meat were delighted at how much better it tasted compared to raw foods. Little did they know that their discovery of fire for cooking their food was also the first step toward reducing foodborne illnesses. Although history does not record the details, it is certain that people have suffered and died from foodborne illness beginning with the very origins of man.
Ancient people roamed their surroundings in search of edible plants and animals, and it is logical to assume they would have most easily captured animals that were sickly and more likely to harbor disease. Because people lacked methods for preserving food, they no doubt ate spoiled and rancid foods that made them sick. Plus, many of them probably died from eating poisonous mushrooms and other toxic plants before they learned which ones to avoid.
Gradually, primitive people shifted to a system of farming and domestication of animals. Methods of food preservation were discovered, such as drying, salting, and fermentation.
Still, early recorded history includes references to dietary practices and records of mass deaths that suggest the existence of foodborne illness. Some scientists have interpreted the biblical story of a severe plague following an Israelite feast of quail as a case of mass food poisoning.
ERGOTISM: THE “CEREAL” KILLER
The Middle Ages in Europe were dark times of poverty, violence, disease, and ignorance. They lasted for a thousand years, from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries. A sense of fear hung over the gloom, and misfortunes of all kinds were blamed on demons. Though poor people were at the mercy of cruel kings, marauding soldiers, and greedy neighbors, what killed many of them was the coarse rye bread that was their main food source.
Ergotism, the disease caused by the toxic fungus that grows on grain crops, was a horrible way to die. The fungus most often grew on rye, a cereal grain that served as the common food of poor people in the Middle Ages. An early name for the disease was Holy Fire, after the tremendous burning sensations in the arms and legs as the toxins cut off circulation. When the fungus was baked into bread, it produced an LSD-like substance that caused victims to hallucinate. (One can only imagine the tormented visions they suffered.) An order of monks built hospitals that provided care for the victims of ergotism. The monks dedicated their works to St. Anthony, and eventually the disease was given the name St. Anthony’s Fire.
The suffering of disease victims inspired artists of the times. For example, modern museum goers are fascinated by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516). Bosch filled his canvases with fanciful creatures, deformed monsters, and scary demons. Bosch lived near the end of the Middle Ages and was familiar with the folklore and superstitions of the times. He also would have known about diseases such as St. Anthony’s Fire. He was a religious man, and many of his paintings portrayed religious themes. One of his most famous paintings, The Temptation for Saint Anthony, portrays the life of this celebrated saint. Yet this painting obviously does much more than tell a religious story. It shows a weird landscape populated by fanciful animals, odd objects, and strange people. It is a fascinating challenge to study this painting to try to understand its symbolism - is Bosch perhaps trying to portray his vision of hell?
Outbreaks of one particularly strange foodborne disease were familiar to Europeans of the Middle Ages. It was commonly called Holy Fire. Many believed that the horrible suffering people endured from the disease was a punishment from God. Victims’ bodies might be twisted in pain while their arms and legs felt like they were on fire. In the 1600s, a French physician noted that the timing of these outbreaks corresponded to grain harvests in which strange growths appeared on some of the grains. Eventually, the physician’s observations were proved correct, and the disease was named ergotism. It is caused by ergot, a toxic fungus that grows on grain crops and ultimately ends up being baked into the bread made from the grain. It is even possible that the hallucinations experienced by the accusers of the Salem Witch Trial may have been due to the same toxins in bread that came from the local bakery.
One modern reading of Bosch’s St. Anthony painting suggests that it is symbolically portraying the effects of a terrible real-life disease. Perhaps the strange animals are the wild hallucinations of someone suffering from ergotism. A fire in the background suggests the disease’s terrible burning sensations and the disease’s common name of St. Anthony’s Fire. An amputated foot may represent the loss of limbs. One vegetable-shaped creature may represent a plant that was commonly used to ease the pain of sufferers. An odd building is shaped like equipment that was used by druggists at the time. It may be that Bosch was, in his own unique way, showing us not only the facts of the disease but what it meant in terms of human suffering.
The horrors of war have been made even more horrific by the presence of foodborne illnesses on the battlefield. Almost every war through history has an accompanying story of soldiers dying from disease rather than in actual battle. In the the century B.C., the Plague of Athens, which hastened the end of the Golden Age of Greece through its defeat by Sparta, was likely caused by a foodborne illness. Lead poisoning of wine may have contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Many more soldiers in the Spanish-American War died of disease than in battle. (Typhoid fever spread by the unsanitary conditions of the training camps was the biggest killer.) The nineteenth-century Opium Wars between Britain and China even featured a case of intentional poisoning. It seems a clever Chinese baker noted that the occupying British ate bread while the local people ate rice. He hatched a scheme to add arsenic to the bread, sold in a bakery frequented by the foreigners. Fortunately, the scheme was detected, and very few actually died from the poison.
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Terry L. Smith
TERRY L. SMITH is a biostatistician and science writer who
lives in Lawrence, Kansas. She has an M.S. in biometry from the
University of Texas School of Public Health. Smith is the author of
numerous books and articles relating to human health, including
Asthma in Chelsea House’s Genes and Disease series.