[Vigilanteman]

Food canning was developed circa 1810. There is a true story about a museum in Great Britain who found some sealed tinned meat from the Napoleonic Wars in the late 1930's and fed it to the museum's cat. The cat enjoyed the historic treat and did just fine. It would have been at least 125 years old at the time. The museum staff, of course, were not willing to lend themselves to such an experiment.

[PUGACHEV]

It's a good thing they didn't eat it. As it is today, the British military aggressively sought the lowest bidder for canned food, but, unlike today. there was apparently no quality control. As a result, some suspect that the Franklin expedition, which disappeared in the Arctic, suffered from lead poisoning as a result of too much solder used in sealing the cans.