CROSS EXAMINATION OF DR. REMSEN

Q. This experiment of Dr. Meissner, about which you have testified is that experiment which is reviewed in the bibliography?

A. It is.

Q. I read from exhibit 1, in which this experiment is referred to as follows:

There is no hippuric acid or benzoic acid in the blood of animals which excrete hippurie acid abundantly in the urine. According to the authors' experimenis on man, ingestion of 7.6 grams of benzoic acid as sodium salt in solution after breakfast was followed suddenly, 30 minutes later, by nausea and vomiting. When 5.7 grams were taken after breakfast there was vehement vomiting after about 35 minutes. When vigorous exercise was taken after the same dose (5.7 grams) there was some nausea, but no vomiting. The nausea can be made to disappear by violent exercise, with deep inspirations, etc. After taking 5.8 grams, when the subject was kept quiet in a warm room there was no nausea or vomiting. A stronger and heavier person repeatedly took 7.6 grams without these symptoms.

The authors conclude from their experiments on animals that the kidney is the only organ where benzoic acid is normally transformed into hippuric acid. When 2 grams of benzoic acid per day were fed to a rabbit during 3 days there was no decrease in urea output. In a dog of 12 to 13 kilograms, 8 grams of benzoic acid given in solution per os caused vomiting. Later 8 grams were given twice a day as dry powder packed in meat. There was apparently no decrease in urea. After several days a toxic effect was noted--difficulty in urinating, spasm, attack of rage, attempts to bite, foam at mouth. Benzoic acid was continued 2 days more and the attacks recurred. Appetite remained good. Convulsions occurred the day after the benzoic was stopped, and then they ceased. Similar attacks were observed in a small dog which received 10 grams benzoic acid for 3 days. The authors conclude that the continued administration of large amounts of benzoic acid is not without danger, although Keller took 2 grams per day for some time without feeling any ill effects. Hippuric acid is formed from benzoic acid in all animals. Authors conclude that in herbiverous animals the excretion of hippuric acid is dependent on the cuticular substance of plants ingested. The small amount in normal human urine probably derives its origin from metabolism products.

Q. Is that a correct review of that experiment as you understood it, Doctor?

A. Of course I cannot positively say that these details are correct, but I.believe them to be correct.

(Page 45 and page 46.)

In the cross examination of Dr. Remsen it was brought out that the reason young men were selected was because they would show the greatest resistance to any pathological effects that were probably produced. Dr. Remsen stated that he did not think the age of the subject would have much to do with the case and to the question that in selecting young men he would have all the power of resistance that could be found in the human system he said yes. Nevertheless he made an answer to the following question:

"And if there was a tendency of benzoate of soda or sodium benzoate in small quantities to affect the system, it would appear less in a test of young men than it would upon any other character of subjects that you could select, wouldn't it?"

A. "I am not sure of that." (Page 26.)

On Page 27 Dr. Remsen was asked what are the variations in temperature, what variations in pulse, what variations in the specific gravity of urine, what variations are there in the volume of urine in normal health. Dr. Remsen answered:

Those matters are not at all within my ken. I am not an expert in those lines, I have never claimed to be. My medical training is so far remote that I confess that that kind of information is not at my fingers' ends.

Page 30. Q. Well, who is at the head of the Chemical Department of the Government?

A. Dr. Wiley, I suppose.

Q. Were you in touch with him?

A. I had nothing to do with him, sir; I didn't see him about it at all.

Q. Well, he is quite an eminent chemist, is he not?

A. He is very well-known. I may say that he is an eminent chemist. Yes.

Q. Now he has been devoting a great deal of time to study of this question, the effect of benzoate of soda upon food products, has he not?

A. Some time, I don't know about a great deal.

Q. Don't you know that he made an investigation on this subject and got out a report on it?

A. He had the investigation made by others. He didn't do it himself.

Q. Well, was he as close in touch with his job as you was in yours?

A. I don't know the facts, but I know the work was carried out by his assistants in the laboratory of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Q. Well, now, Dr. Wiley reached the conclusion as a result of his investigation to which I have referred that benzoate of soda was harmful when used in foods in what you denominate "small quantities" didn't he?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And all over the country there are scientific men who have been studying this question who agree with Dr. Wiley upon that question, do they not?

A. I don't know that scientific men all over the country have been studying that question in any scientific way. We have no records of experiments. I won't say there are none, but there are very few, if any, and so far as I understand the situation these gentlemen who agree with Dr. Wiley simply agree with him, accept his opinion.

Page 32.

Q. Well, when you had this hearing of the Referee Board at which you heard both sides, did Dr. Wiley appear at that hearing?

A. No.

Q. Was he invited?

A. No. It was restricted to those who used benzoate of soda or those who do not use it but who are interested in it from the manufacturing point of view; that is what I meant.

Page 35.

Q. Well, do you approve of the result that Dr. Wiley got in investigating this question?

A. I can't answer that question. I don't like to.

Q. Well, I would like to have you do it.

A. I do not. Or I should rather put it in this way, that our Board does not.

Q. That is to say you reached a different conclusion from Dr. Wiley? That is what you mean to say?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. You are not criticizing his work.

A. Not at all.

Q. But you say you approve the work of an expert because it is done by an expert?

A. Yes.

Q. Dr. Wiley is an expert, isn't he?

A. Not in physiological work.

Q. You think he has had no experience in physiological work?

A. I am unable to say, but my impression is that it has been very little. I am very sorry to testify in this way but you have pushed me to it.

Q. I understand that you yourself are not a physiologic chemist?

A. No, I am not.

Q. So that is the opinion of one non-physiological chemist upon another?

A. Hardly. My opinion is based upon my experience with a board of men who are thoroughly familiar with that kind of work.

Q. What peculiar knowledge now would a chemist have to have in order to conduct an investigation of this kind?

A. He would have to be an expert in physiological work, physiological chemist is really what you would want, a pharmacologist is a form of physiological chemist, a man who studies the effects of substances upon the system, but in order to judge the effects he must have physiological knowledge and must bring that into play at every step.

Q. Now you are not a pharmacologist, I believe you call it, is that correct?

A. That is the name; I am not a pharmacologist.

Q. And you are not a physiological chemist?

A. No.

Q. And it is necessary to have both these elements of education in order to be able to conduct properly this sort of investigation.

A. Undoubtedly.

Q. Well, if it is necessary that we shall have a pharmacologist and a physiological chemist and you are neither, isn't it a fact that your opinion is influenced by the conclusions reached by those who are pharmacologists and physiological chemists who are on the Board?

I desire at this point to introduce a statement in regard to my personal attention to the work carried on in the Bureau of Chemistry in studying the effect of small quantities of benzoic acid and benzoate of soda on the health of the young men who were undergoing these experiments. I may say that the Referee Board were not the authors of the plan of experiment which they followed. It was copied directly from the plan adopted by the Bureau of Chemistry in all of these investigations, with this exception. All foods used were carefully analyzed by the Bureau of Chemistry, very few foods were analyzed by the Referee Board. I gave my personal attention for five years to all the details of this work. During the winters I rose long before daylight, even before the street cars were running and walked two miles to my laboratory, which I reached by seven o'clock. I supervised the preparation of the breakfast, I weighed, with assistance of others, every article of food which was administered, I supervised the actual analyses of these foods in the laboratory, I studied the condition of the young men every day as a medical man. I saw that their excreta, solid and liquid, were collected and delivered to the laboratory. I dined with the young men except that I did not take the foods to which the preservatives were added. I felt that my continued good health would be at stake if I did, but I ate the same kinds of foods that they ate otherwise. When nine o'clock came I went to my office and performed the ordinary duties connected therewith until luncheon time. I then went into the kitchen and supervised the preparation of their lunch under the same conditions. After luncheon was over I again went to my duties as Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry. At five o'clock I again went back into the kitchen and supervised the preparation of dinner. I remained in the kitchen and dining room and dined with the young men at dinner. By seven o'clock the dinner was over. This was the routine which I followed for five years winter and summer except at such times as I was called away from Washington. When I was called out of town, Dr. W. D. Bigelow, my first assistant, took my place as supervisor of the experimental work; yet Dr. Remsen without making any effort to learn the truth about the matter said I took no part in this work, that I was not a physiological chemist.

In 1910 I was awarded the Elliot Cresson medal of the Franklin Institute for leading work in physiological and agricultural chemistry. This medal was given me for inaugurating the most extensive investigations ever undertaken in this country in improving the valuable properties of plants. I inaugurated and carried into effect, in connection with A. A. Denton of Kansas, experiments in improving the quantity and quality of sorghum for sugar-making purposes carried, over a period of many years in which the percentage of sucrose in sorghum was raised from nine to fourteen per cent. These experiments were published in numerous bulletins of the Department of Agriculture extending over a period of many years. In like manner I inaugurated and carried into effect a work extending over several years of ascertaining the factors which would produce the best quality of sugar beet in the United States. The results were published in the bulletins of the Bureau of Chemistry and enabled the manufacturers who were intending to go into the sugar-beet industry to locate their plants in those areas in which the best sugar beets were grown. In all some five hundred thousand analyses of sugar beets grown under similar conditions with the same seeds were made. Following this physiological chemical work I originated and carried into effect a series of experiments extending from Maine to Florida of the factors which produce the largest amount of sugar in sweet corn. These results were also published as bulletins of the bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture. It was for these far-reaching investigations of physiological chemical problems, and for similar work in studying the effects of preservatives and coloring matters on health, that the directors of the Franklin Institute awarded me the Elliot Cresson medal. The gold medal bears this inscription:

To HARVEY W. WILEY

For Distinguished Leading and Directive Work

in Agricultural and Physiological Chemistry, 1910

Yet Dr. Remsen under oath said I was not a physiological chemist.

Pages 112 to 116-Indiana Record.