Coffee and Soup, in Pill Form, Make Soldiers Sick
Originally published in November 1895
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“The federal government has been experimenting at its military posts with condensed rations. At Fort Logan, the rations consisted of coffee and soup, condensed into small tablets; the bread was crushed into a flat cake of the weight and hardness of a stone. The bacon was solidly packed in a tin can. The soldiers marched and ate as ordered, but their marching and eating were brought to an abrupt end by more than half falling sick before one-half the allotted time expired. The report to the War Department at Washington is wholly against the experiment.”
—Scientific American, November 1895
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