The "Great Olive Poisoning" of 1919

[Music] on saturday august 23rd 1919 the lakeside club of canton ohio held a dinner and a dance to celebrate the return of colonel charles c webrecht formerly the adjutant general of the state of ohio and most recently commander of the us 146th infantry regiment the party some version of which was being held all over the country as the some 2.8 million u.s service members who served in the great war slowly came home was generally considered to be a success the first death came three days later at first it was assumed that the cause was cold storage turkey but soon suspicion fell on another food the great olive poisoning of 1919 was one of the deadliest food poisoning outbreaks in u.s history and it changed the way that the nation saw and consumed their food it is history that deserves to be remembered colonel charles weibridge was born in alliance ohio in 1868 his father was french and immigrated to alliance in the 1850s where he started a lumber mill charles joined the ohio national guard early and served as a major with the 8th ohio volunteer infantry which fought in cuba during the siege of santiago to cuba by 1916 waybrick was a lieutenant colonel and the unit was called up to serve under john pershing then trying to hunt down pancho villa the unit was called up again in 1917 with the ohio national guard becoming the 37th division and the eighth now with waybrook commanding as a full colonel became the 146th regiment the regiment fought in the muse argonne and the eeps lee offensives after the fighting stopped waybrook assisted with the logistical problems of sending the american expeditionary force home and foreign services was awarded the french legion of honor he returned home to alliance in july just a month before the dinner party in canton there were in total 18 guests seated at the colonel's table including work webrick's wife emily and seven other couples the host william and helen garris industrialist william henry morgan and his wife annette annette's brother jeweler john sharer and his wife kit salem ohio newspaper publisher louis brush and his wife maude and dr willis sanford and his wife jessica the full party at the club had about 200 attendees but at the guests at waybrook's table soon learned it was only their table that got sick william morgan's son also named william and only 15 at the time recalled the event as part of an oral history project in the 1980s on saturday a day after the party william jr's uncle john cheryl reported seeing two girls walking up union avenue in alliance perplexed they were dressed exactly alike and moved in unison there were of course only one girl others at the party also reported double vision on sunday john morgan and william jr went mushroom hunting and collected a number of mushrooms and puff balls another kind of edible fungus which john and his wife kit ate that night by monday the illnesses had become more severe for the members of the dinner party the shares were very ill that morning and william morgan senior was concerned that they may have misidentified some of the mushrooms he helped john pick the day before william senior received several more messages throughout the day colonel waybrecht was said to have suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and then he heard that helen garris was also sick it was then according to william jr that his father first surmised that all these illnesses had a single cause the friday dinner party doctors were contacted all of whom agreed that the party must have been poisoned but what poison it was and how the guests had ingested it was unknown they called in a doctor from cleveland who almost immediately diagnosed the problem as an outbreak of botulism based on an article he'd recently read helen garris died that evening before she could be examined colonel weibridge was so weak that night that he couldn't speak and shortly after an examination he too died at 4 00 a.m on tuesday morning among the first symptoms of botulism are weakness in the cranial muscles which affect things like eye movement movement of the facial muscles and the muscles that allow you to chew and swallow double vision and eye drooping are characteristic as the illness progresses the muscle weakness then spreads and essentially the person becomes paralyzed and in the most severe cases that paralysis affects the muscles that control breathing leading to death symptoms usually start to occur between 12 to 72 hours after the poisoning and if untreated are very often fatal everyone who was present was contacted on tuesday and more than half of them reported illness at first the doctor suspected that the cause was probably turkey served at the dinner the lakeside club was notified and soon reported that while no one else at the party was showing any signs of illness several of their own were sick and one a waiter named robert jennings had already died the fact that the illness was centered on only one table made the turkey an unlikely candidate served along with the turkey were among other things cantaloupe tolls cake ice cream and as appetizers green olives celery and pickles however because mrs garris had brought black olives candy and nuts way bricks table hadn't been served the green olives celery or pickles with the determination that the turkey was the unlikely cause doctors turned their suspicion to the olives in a jar with about a half dozen was still there at the club the olives as well as the turkey were sent for testing as the investigation for the cause went on the deaths continued john shearer died tuesday night and his wife kitt died the next morning the chef at the club died rumors were flying about the cause one particular rumor was that the alcohol consumed at the party or possibly in with the olives had caused the deaths six were now dead and more than that still ill several in serious condition poison from the olives was also reportedly injected into a rabbit which died soon after at least one person believed that the poisonings were done by russian bolsheviks funerals for the sharers and colonel waybrecht were held on the same day and the funeral position was 10 blocks long in memory of the colonel and the sharers prominent members of town society called in to investigate the outbreak was charles armstrong who had been in france during the war and investigated outbreaks of the 1918 influenza at the time he was working as an epidemiological aide with the ohio state department of health he announced to reporters that he was here to make a complete investigation of the tragedy seeking the truth without bias or prejudice by friday august 29th six days after the party most of the other guests were recovering except jesse sanford a serum had been procured from the university of illinois in urbana that supposedly could improve her condition college however would not accept any responsibility for the use or effects of the serum the serum had been used successfully to cure forage poisoning believe possibly caused by the botulinus bacteria it was administered anyway and despite their best efforts jesse died the following day one week after the dinner at least one other was reported as seriously ill but jesse would be the last of the dinner party to die of botulism armstrong's investigation reported later that year was incredibly thorough he examined each part of the menu and did extensive interviews to figure out who had eaten what the olives quickly became the most likely suspect armstrong reported that various diners observed something peculiar in their taste odor or consistency members of the party said that they smelled like limb burger bit the tongue stuck to the tongue were soft or were not fit to eat all of the 14 people who became ill had eaten olives and several more had tasted but not ingested much of the olive when the dead are considered it is found in a general way that those who died first ate the most olives armstrong concluded the first to die was the waiter robert jennings who had eaten according to armstrong's investigation five or six olives and died less than three days later very shortly after that was the first hostess mrs garris who reportedly ate three of the olives followed by the colonel and john sharer who had eaten four or five jesse sanford had only eaten half an olive most of the party who had eaten only one olive became ill but did not die armstrong had also reported that more evidence pointed to issues with the olives something had broken the vacuum seal the lid is said to have come off easily without having been punctured and without the use of instruments the lid was lost and so could not be examined but the jar itself was not cracked or defective in any way the olives were then placed in three serving dishes for reasons that were not explained olives in two of those dishes were rinsed but the olives in the last one were not armstrong speculates that rinsing the olives removes some of the poison and that the unwashed olives could explain why jesse sanford died after eating only half an olive armstrong concluded firmly that the only possible explanation for the outbreak was the olives waiters commonly ate some of the leftovers after a dinner robert jennings apparently ate several before trying to induce another waiter to try one because of the odd taste that second way to refuse but another did apparently eat one or two and got sick finally jennings had approached the chef and said try one of these damn things they don't taste right to me the chef ate two which would kill him the olives were mammoth ripe olives packed by the curtis brothers in california armstrong wasn't sure exactly how botulinus bacteria had entered the jar but pointed out that one of the problems with commercial canning in cases like the one in alliance one could hardly fail to appreciate the possibility of many jars being infected at the same pack and of the organism being broadcast over the country the ripe olives eaten at the banquet have an interesting history themselves green olives are picked before the fruit is ripe and are cured while the olive turns black once it is fully ripened like any fresh fruit it can't survive long transportation a problem that was sold by a german immigrant named frida amen frida ran an olive grove outside oroville california and she sought to expand her market beyond olive oil eamon began experimenting working with a food scientist at the university of california she perfected a recipe for pickling ripe olives but maintaining their taste and settled on jars for packaging in many cases as with say ketchup clear jars are used to show the consumer that the food inside is safe that it's not discolored otherwise turning but the botulinus bacteria is insidious and even a jar that looks apparently clean can include the bacteria while the situation and alliance was among the worst it wasn't the only botulism poisoning caused by jarred ripe olives in 1919 five people died in a similar event in detroit a year later william morgan even contacted the doctors involved when he noticed similarities in the illness it was soon discovered that the olives in both detroit and alliance were not only from the same company but have been packed on the same day in the same plant a third outbreak in memphis was caused by more olives packed on the same day and five more died in montana in 1919 from tainted olives it didn't stop there either as in 1920 an italian family was struck killing six botulism had often been a problem in home canning when mistakes were likely to be made in the process but now commercially canned goods were rapidly becoming dangerous the ripe olive crisis his industry members called it was the culmination of poor practices throughout the canning industry and underlined the inefficiency of inspection feeling helpless to identify affected jars the bureau of chemistry told the public do not consume rypolis from glass jars indeed abstain from eating even from tasting any processed food that has even the slightest unnatural odor they also assured the public that botulism in olives was rare and that before 1919 have been more commonly found in string beans asparagus and the like the next decade saw the complete devastation of the california ripe olive industry in 1920 the california board of health enacted an emergency regulation requiring sanitation throughout all of processing and mandating a thermal process the toxin from botulinum bacteria dies when properly exposed to heat however that wasn't enough to save the industry and poisonings continued ayman's olives were even involved in a 1924 incident in 1925 california passed the cannery inspection act supported by both the state board of health and the national canters association which hoped to prove that canning was safe these regulations also caused another interesting change it was required to heat the olives by immersion water at 240 degrees fahrenheit and jars physically couldn't stand the treatment but metal cans could which meant that when california elves appeared on store shelves they had a new package the 1919 botulism outbreaks were serious and they led to something of a national panic as people were surprised to find out that even mechanically canned foods could be dangerous it resulted in some of what we today consider to be common sense understanding of food safety for example never purchase food from a store if the seal appears to have been broken or if the can appears to be damaged and never eat food if the smell is even a little bit off death from botulism is rare in the world today while the bacteria is common it has to be ingested to be dangerous to an adult and today there are anti-toxins as well as machines that can aid in breathing that means it's much less likely to be fatal the fatality rate for botulism poisoning used to be around 50 but today it's closer to around 7.5 percent the illness is more common in infants who can acquire the illness merely by breathing in the spores but it is readily deadly dr charles armstrong would later become an important figure in the search for a polio cure the role for which is perhaps most remembered today william morgan jr said that his mother who became ill but survived the allowance banquet never tasted another ripe olive nor could i blame her i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 171,088

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, food safety, olives, ohio, botulism, us history, american history

Id: hCj293oMwqo

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021