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Health And Medicine In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

709 Words3 Pages

Health and Medicine From the early 1900s to now the process of food has changed significantly. Today, thankfully there is cures for food poisoning and scientist are doing research and finding more and more information about the situation. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, to thank for the most part because without his book, people would not have known about how their food is made and where is comes from. Even in today’s society, foods are being recalled. From Upton Sinclair’s book, the Government made the Pure Food and Drug Act, which is now used all over the world.
In the 1900s, only few people cared where their food came from and what was put into it. However, in 1906 Upton Sinclair wrote a book about the meat packing industry, called The Jungle. The purpose of the book was for everyone to realize the harsh working conditions and labor issues. As a result, people were disgusted on what was put into their food and the unsanitary conditions. When people read that, “There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage” (Sinclair 114), the readers cared more …show more content…

Now in bathroom at restaurants, grocery stores, malls, and more all have signs saying, “Employees MU ST wash hands,” due to labor laws. In time, the law became one of the most effective measures protecting the health of Americans. The act includes, “Guaranteeing safety of almost all food and cosmetics; and ensuring the safety, quality, and effectiveness of 13,000 prescription and non-prescription drugs and vaccines, all medical devices, and all tissues transplant” (Kubic 3). Over the pass fifty years, the act has been recognized to benefit people’s health. Production of any type of food has increasingly went up with labor laws too. The Act was the solution to corrupt quality and safer working

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Sinclair worked undercover in a meatpacking plant to gather information firsthand, before he began writing the book. Its influence on the labor practices and regulations governing the food industry cannot be understated. It tackles subjects as varied as the poor living conditions of the immigrants, exploitation of cheap labor by industrialists, and the unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking plants and stockyards of Chicago. The descriptions of the disgusting processes that were conducted in the meatpacking plants made for shocking reading and turned the book into a bestseller. The President Teddy Roosevelt ordered an investigation into the lack of sanitation in meatpacking plants and caused the creation of legislation governing the food industry in the form of the Food and Drugs Act of 1906.

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The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair was an expose on the life of those who lived in Packingtown, Chicago. Packingtown was where most of the people who was looking for work lived, it was a very crowded city. Job openings were scarce and most of the jobs were very unsafe. Most of the people in this part of town were poor, so they did not really have much doubts of food,. The Jungle exposed the horrific work conditions, the poor food quality, and the deceitfulness of the business owners.

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