ABSTRACT
In the 1870s, it was discovered that pharmacologic amounts of borax and boric acid could be used to preserve foods. For about the next 50 years, borates were considered some of the best preservatives for extending the palatability of foods such as fish, meat, cream, and butter. In 1904, however, Wiley (1) reported that human volunteers consuming over 500 mg of boric acid per day for 50 days displayed disturbed appetite, digestion, and health. Subsequent to his report, the opinion that boron posed a risk to health gained momentum; by the middle 1950s, boron was essentially forbidden throughout the world as a food preservative.
