Canned Foods
Although these tin cans were not initially very practical (you needed a hammer and chisel to open the cans), they were more robust than the glass bottles of Nicolas Appert. Canning became widespread after the invention in 1855 of the can opener by Robert Yeates, a cutlery and surgical instrument maker in Middlesex, England.Competition from the British, favored by access to a better quality and less expensive tinplate, eventually ruined Appert.In 1840, he sold his company, and on June 1st 1841, widower, without money to offer himself a burial, Appert died in Massy, where his body is deposited in the pauper's grave.This is how the story of Nicolas Appert, a benefactor of humanity, ends.
