A Deadly Dinner of Mussels
Captain McAlpine's near-fatal meal at a local restaurant highlights the hidden dangers of the city's seafood consumption in 1893.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A mess of mussels very nearly killed Capt. A. C. McAlpine, of the fireboat Snoqualmie, a few nights ago. He ate a plateful at a restaurant and became violently ill. Being an apothecary himself, he took an emetic, but grew worse upon returning to the Arlington hotel. Dr. Raymond was called, finding the captain suffering from a severe rash and heart collapse. The physician attributed the illness to a spoiled mussel containing ptomaine, noting that some individuals have a specific sensitivity to shellfish. McAlpine eventually recovered, though the incident left the medical community noting it as a remarkable case of sudden poisoning.
“Some people can never eat shellfish without becoming deathly sick.”
Food safety incidents at local eateries are perennial news. While we now have modern health inspections to prevent ptomaine poisoning, the underlying fear of a bad meal remains a shared civic anxiety.
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