POISON-TASTER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4495, 24 November 1922, Page 2

POISON-TASTER.

SCIENTIST WHO MADE HIMSELF ILL. Working hard in the quiet lipurs of the night, when, ;he says, 'his brain is most clear, a slim young man well under medium height, by his research work in the chemical laboratory of Bristol University, is making a name for himself as a master in unravelling the secrets of poison in. food. He is Mr Philip Bruce-White, the bacteriologist, who solved the riddle of the deaths of eight people at Loch Maree by detecting botulism as the fatal poison in tihe wild duck paste in the sandwiches they ate. Mr Bryce White also himself ate in the course of his tests some of the cheese which caused poisoning outbreaks in Dpver and Warrington. -Just now he is searching for poison in some fish paste eaten by a man named William Twigg Massie, of Warner Street, Southwark, SiE., on whom an inquest has been held. With; Dr, W. G. Savage, county medical officer for Somerset, Mr Bruce-White is carrying out this most valuable work on behalf of the food section of the Ministry of Health and the Medical Research, CounciL Almost unknown to the public, the work of examining food suspected of being poisoned is now almost entirely in the hands of half a dozen men at the Bristol laboratory. They are being inundated with many kinds of food samples, and the laboratory often, has a variegated larder of cheese h,am, brawn, paste, tinned salmon, and so forth that are under suspicion. TESTS ON RABBITS. ' Mr Bruce-White has described how, when investigating the case of the Loch Maree sandwiches, he sat up all night watching the effect of the poisoned wild duck paste on rabbits and guinea-pigs. In a large wooden shed on the roof of Bristol University is a menagerie of rabbits, guineapigs, r ( ats, and mice, which by their symptoms reveal the presence of poison in food, and its nature. As a poison-taster Professor BruceWhite has unpleasant memories. It was after many tests had failed to establish the identity of the suspected poison in the cheese from Dover and Warrington that he ate samples himself over a period of several weeks. Most of the samples he tasted’ were not poisoned, but a few were, and i.n. one of these cases he was indisposed for four or five days,