This is the autobiography of Harvey W. Wiley, the food chemist who is recognized as the "Father of US Food and Drug Law;" he championed the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Law. Among other vignettes, Wiley explains how Teddy Roosevelt was reading The Jungle at breakfast while eating sausage - prompting him to get behind the law, and details the activities of his "Poison Squad," a band of young men who volunteered to eat meals loaded with preservatives.