# When did ancient people begin to understand food poisoning? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 5, 2020, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116 "2020-04-05T08:34:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/1 "2020-04-05T08:34:21Z")
Not necessarily understand in the sense of germ theory, but rather, draw consistent connections between food being left at room temperature for too long and the resulting stomach pain/vomiting that ensued. Especially with food for nobles or royals, for instance - privileged people who must not be sickened - did their servers/staff generally know what sort of time limit that food prepared for them had to be consumed by, or else discarded? ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/2 "2020-04-05T09:36:17Z")
If you eat cycad kernels you are pretty likely to ingest several very toxic, carcinogenic compounds. Nonetheless there is archaeological evidence of processing by Australian Aboriginal people of Macrozamia and other cycad genera, to remove the poisonous element going back archaeologically at least 5,000 years before present. ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/3 "2020-04-05T09:48:53Z")
Pointing out the obvious; a lot of foods _smell_ bad when they’ve gone bad. It wouldn’t take too long to work out that that funny-smelling pork caused illness and/or death. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/4 "2020-04-05T10:05:21Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > If you eat cycad kernels you are pretty likely to ingest several very toxic, carcinogenic compounds. Nonetheless there is archaeological evidence of processing by Australian Aboriginal people of Macrozamia and other cycad genera, to remove the poisonous element going back archaeologically at least 5,000 years before present. Ok, but by food poisoning, I mean food spoilage (good food gone bad), not foods that always contained some poisonous component to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/5 "2020-04-05T10:15:12Z")
I think it is innate. Pre-mammalian. At least, in the species I have observed, animals given a choice will not eat food that will make them sick. It is obviously an evolutionary advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/6 "2020-04-05T12:41:25Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Ok, but by food poisoning, I mean food spoilage (good food gone bad), not foods that always contained some poisonous component to begin with. Despite the title, it appears OP is asking about food-borne illness. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/7 "2020-04-05T13:44:19Z")
Don’t assume that people in earlier times were stupid. If food looks, smells, or tastes bad and you eat it and get ill, you don’t have to be a genius to draw the obvious conclusion. If it doesn’t look, smell, or taste bad it’s unlikely to do you any harm. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/8 "2020-04-05T14:35:02Z")
It’s unlikely food would be sitting around very long in a fully functioning medieval castle. The entire complex would be crawling with hungry mouths day and night, and generally everyone ate together, servants and lords of the house alike. It was only toward the end of the Middle Ages that the wealthy and elite would dine apart. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/9 "2020-04-05T14:55:37Z")
Wolves understand the idea of food or water that’s gone bad. I’m pretty sure early humans figured it out. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/10 "2020-04-05T15:30:15Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > It’s unlikely food would be sitting around very long in a fully functioning medieval castle. The entire complex would be crawling with hungry mouths day and night, and generally everyone ate together, servants and lords of the house alike. It was only toward the end of the Middle Ages that the wealthy and elite would dine apart. The way things worked at the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I: The King (or Queen) ate first - 8-10 dishes were offered as a sort of buffet for each of first course, main course, dessert. Whatever wasn’t eaten went to members of the nobility and members of the privy council, plus more dishes according the numbers. Whatever they didn’t eat went to the common table in the hall, along with more dishes according to the numbers who ate there. Anything left over at the end of meal was given away to beggars at the gates, by a special official appointed for that purpose. Nothing was wasted, and whatever was cooked on the day was eaten on the day. ---
**Author:** ![EdelweissPirate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8491ac/32.png) [@EdelweissPirate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdelweissPirate)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/11 "2020-04-06T09:46:10Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Despite the title, it appears OP is asking about food-borne illness. I’d argue that it’s clear that the OP is asking about food-borne illness _because_ of the title. This isn’t the JAMA, and I’d be mildly astonished to hear a non-specialist use “food poisoning” to mean anything other than “food-borne illness” in this context. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/12 "2020-04-06T10:11:41Z")
> [@EdelweissPirate](#): > > I’d argue that it’s clear that the OP is asking about food-borne illness _because_ of the title. > > This isn’t the JAMA, and I’d be mildly astonished to hear a non-specialist use “food poisoning” to mean anything other than “food-borne illness” in this context. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. [To bring this back around, whatever happened to the ptomaine of yesteryear?](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/ptomaine) > [@](#): > > **ptomaine** (us /ˈtoʊ.meɪn/ uk /ˈtəʊ.meɪn/ > > a substance found in decaying vegetable and animal matter that used to be thought to cause food poisoning: > [ul] > [li]The theory was that poorly preserved meats would be contaminated by ptomaine.[/li][li]He was told that scurvy was an acidic condition of the blood caused by ptomaines in tainted meat.[/li][/ul] Yes: People used to believe that food poisoning was caused by an actual poison, an alkaloid body, which formed in decaying plant and animal matter. [An Agatha Christie wiki has more information](https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/Ptomaine_poisoning): > [@](#): > > In 1883, the Italian, Professor Salmi, of Bologna, introduced the generic name ptomaine (from Greek ptōma, “fall, fallen body, corpse”) for alkaloids found in decaying animal and vegetable matter. > > While The Lancet stated, “The chemical ferments produced in the system, the… ptomaines which may exercise so disastrous an influence.” It is now known that the “disastrous… influence” is due to the direct action of bacteria and only slightly to the alkaloids. Thus, the use of the phrase “ptomaine poisoning” is now obsolete. [Here’s _Popular Science Monthly_ from April 1912 on the subject](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_80/April_1912/Ptomaines_and_Ptomaine_Poisoning): > [@](#): > > Ptomaines are chemical compounds of an alkaloidal nature formed in protein substances during the process of putrefaction. In order to a clear understanding of the subject, emphasis is to be laid on the fact that they are purely _chemical_ bodies formed out of the medium in which they occur. > > In this respect they are to be differentiated from the toxins, which are poisons of unknown composition, formed within the bacterial cell itself and in the case of certain organisms, given off to the medium in which they grow. They are also to be differentiated from another class of compounds known as leucomaines, which may in some instances be of like chemical composition, but which are formed only within the living body, usually as the result of tissue metamorphosis. From these, when not properly eliminated, we get the varied phases of auto-infection. > > Putrefaction is the biochemical process by which all protein matter is reduced to the inorganic state from whence it came, thus completing the life cycle. This change is brought about by the action of microorganisms. A certain group of bacteria have the power to split up the complex protein molecule and thus form new and simpler compounds. As a result of their action we have formed first albumoses and peptones and from these we have formed the amino acids which are the great foundation stones of the proteins. These are still capable of sustaining bacterial life and the splitting-up process continues. As a result we may get a large number of products, solid (crystalline), liquid and gaseous—and among them may be some of the basic compounds which we call ptomaines. These days, talk of ptomaine is rarer than GPs who can diagnose fourth disease, and for good reason, but it’s proof that the modern knowledge of how “food poisoning” works is modern indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/13 "2020-04-06T12:06:25Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > Pointing out the obvious; a lot of foods _smell_ bad when they’ve gone bad. It wouldn’t take too long to work out that that funny-smelling pork caused illness and/or death. Yeah, and it goes further than that even: almost everything that smells bad to us is spoiled food or things from our everyday environment that would otherwise look like food but are harmful. The whole notion of “smells bad” is based around our hardwired aversion to these things. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/14 "2020-04-06T14:43:42Z")
“It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” As to actual food poisoning, no doubt there was a great deal of trial and error before connections were made. Until relatively recent history people blamed gods and demons for bad health outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/15 "2020-04-06T16:29:28Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” > > As to actual food poisoning, no doubt there was a great deal of trial and error before connections were made. Until relatively recent history people blamed gods and demons for bad health outcomes. :dubious: Can you give an example from any time or culture of someone getting ill from food poisoning and blaming gods or demons? Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/16 "2020-04-06T16:35:13Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” > > As to actual food poisoning, no doubt there was a great deal of trial and error before connections were made. Until relatively recent history people blamed gods and demons for bad health outcomes. What I was wondering was, if perhaps kings or nobles that left food that had been left out at room temperature too long and got salmonella, etc., then accused the cooks of having poisoned the food. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/17 "2020-04-06T16:54:23Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > What I was wondering was, if perhaps kings or nobles that left food that had been left out at room temperature too long and got salmonella, etc., then accused the cooks of having poisoned the food. There was no such thing as “left out at room temperature” because there was no refrigeration. Food was always at room temperature. They usually didn’t keep food for long (unless it was dried or pickled), or eat it raw. Usually it was eaten the day it was cooked, or at most the next day. You could smell if there was a problem with it. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/18 "2020-04-06T19:50:29Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” > > As to actual food poisoning, no doubt there was a great deal of trial and error before connections were made. Until relatively recent history people blamed gods and demons for bad health outcomes. Step 1, cook it and feed it to the dog. Step 2, make soup. Step 3, try it raw. While people did blame things on gods, demons, humors and such, they knew food. Ensuring a plentiful supply of non-poisonous food was near the top of the list of things to figure out. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2020, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/19 "2020-04-07T04:31:47Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” Food history website [http://www.foodtimeline.org/](http://www.foodtimeline.org/) lists oysters as one of the very first foods eaten by humans “Archaeological evidence suggests oysters were consumed from the dawn of humanity forwards. Easy to collect, nourishing and tasty, these versatile molluscs were consumed raw, cooked, and preserved.” According to this site, [Food Poisoning: An On-going Saga | History and Policy](http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/food-poisoning-an-on-going-saga), “Salmonella was first identified as a food poisoner in 1885” There are lots of sites about Ancient Egyptian methods of food preservation so they must have had an understanding of the dangers of spoiled food. > **[Ancient Egyptian Preppers – Food Security and Preservation (including Ancient...](https://stealtharmour.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/ancient-egyptian-preppers-food-security-and-preservation-including-ancient-recipes-history-news/)** > >   Egyptians Were Preppers & Discovered Fermentation In ancient times, fermentation was considered as a way of both preserving food and retaining its nutritional value. It was probably acci… ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2020, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116/20 "2020-04-07T05:26:57Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Can you give an example from any time or culture of someone getting ill from food poisoning and blaming gods or demons? Cite? Do you suppose it’s a _coincidence_ that multiple ancient religions have prohibitions against eating pork, beef, milk, and shellfish? They knew that eating certain foods made them sick even if they didn’t know why. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-ancient-people-begin-to-understand-food-poisoning/851116.md?page=2)