be manifestly impossible to cover the subject of all adulterants which have been from time to time used to deceive the consumer into believing them to be pure foods.

It will suffice to mention those in common use at present.

The chief adulteration to which meats are subject, exclusive of the sale of diseased and putrid animal tissue, is the addition of preservatives. In early times man learned to "smoke" and preserve meats with salt, but in these latter days "embalmed beef" and chemical preservation has flourished to a remarkable degree, which, in addition to the refrigerator cars and cold-storage rooms, has made it possible to deliver and sell meats raised on our Western plains in all the foreign countries and even in the tropical climates. The chemicals usually employed are boric acid, borax, salicylic acid and sulphites. These substances are sold commercially under the names of Freezem, Iceine, Preservaline, Bull Meat Flour, etc., and are used to dust on the surface of meats or mixed with them.-E. F. LADD, Chemist, North Dakota.

From recent experiments made at the United States Agricultural Station, Fargo, N. D., by E. F. Ladd, Chemist and Food Commissioner, it was found that these substances were present in ham, dried beef and like cured products from 5 to 15 grains to the pound; in sausages, bolognas and hamburger steak, from 20 to 50 grains of boric acid to the pound.

In many samples of sausages, sliced bacon, chicken loaf put up by some of the leading packers of this country, as Armour, Libby, Swift and Cudahy, boric acid, borates and sulphites were recovered in varying amounts.

In regard to the deleterious effect of borax and boron compounds, Dr. Wiley, of the Bureau of Chemistry, United States Agricultural Department, states "that doses not exceeding half a gram daily, or equivalent thereto, are prejudicial when consumed for long periods of time. It is undoubtedly true that no patent effects may be produced in persons of good health by the occasional use of preservatives of this kind, but the young, the debilitated and the sick must not be forgotten, and a safe rule to follow is to exclude these preservatives from foods of general consumption."

Dr. Charles Harrington, of Boston, in a recent series of experiments upon the use of boric acid in food products, found that when only dusted on the surface of the meat they are absorbed into its substance and no amount of boiling or soaking would eliminate them. He found in some samples of ham and corned beef as much as 28 grains of boric acid to the pound.

Regarding the use of sodium sulphite as a meat preservative, the same writer states that "it is classed as a food preservative, but its antiseptic properties are comparatively feeble. It is used more especially on account of its effect on the appearance of the food to which it is

added, its preservative influence being decidedly a minor consideration. It confers upon minced or chopped meat an abnormally brilliant red color, which conveys to the purchaser the idea of freshness. The red color persisting as it does, meat which is in reality well advanced in decomposition is readily disposed of as perfectly fresh, for although the number of bacteria per gram. may run as high as 500,000,000, it may give no marked odor. It can be fairly said that, on this account of masking decomposition, it is an undesirable admixture.'

Dr. Victor C. Vaughan, of University of Michigan, in a recent article on "Food Preservatives," gave as the essentials of a substance used as a food preservative before it receives legal

sanction:

"1. It must be a real preservative, keeping the food in a wholesome condition and not merely retaining the appearance of freshness while bacterial changes continue.

"2. In the largest quantities used it must not impair any of the digestive processes.

"3. It must not be a cell poison, or if a cell poison in any amount it must be added to foods only by persons qualified by special training and officially authorized, and foods containing these substances must be plainly labeled, and the kind and amount of the preservative used must be known not only to the buyer, but to each consumer."

As regards boric acid, it is also a feeble antiseptic and must be added to food in comparatively large quantities to act as a preservative, so that, as one authority stated, "it is quite possible for a person to take as much as 3 grams, or about 46 grains daily, in his ordinary food."

Among the deleterious effects of boron compounds Dr. John V. Shoemaker, of Philadelphia, mentions "retardation of diastatic action of saliva upon starch lessens appetite, produces vomiting, gastric catarrh, diarrhoea, capable of inducing nephritis and various skin eruptions."

In addition to meats, fish, oysters, clams and other perishable animal food products are preserved with salicylic acid, borates and the like.

Meat and fish poisoning, however, do occur independently of the presence of artificial preservatives, due to bacterial action and the production of toxic products capable of inducing severe and even fatal poisoning. It may be of interest, however, to note that the so-called chemical germicides are in reality, as Vaughan states, "not true preservatives, but allow the bacterial action to go on just the same, although to the consumer they give a false impression of freshness, as the color and odor of the meat is kept intact. It is similar to removing a red lamp of danger on a dark street and substituting therefore a white light simply because the white light would look better and thus take away the warning signal placed there for the protection of life and limb."

Only recently a case came under my observa

tion which was clearly due to the fact that the patient had eaten quite freely of potted ham, undoubtedly due to meat which had undergone bacterial changes just before being packed and a preservative added to keep the meat in the can, but which in reality allowed bacterial changes to go on just the same.

The most common adulterations of flour (wheat) and bread are the so-called "mixed" flours, consisting of admixture of wheat flour, with rye, cornmeal and blighted or molded wheat flour. Mineral substances, such as alum, copper, sulphate, borax, chalk and carbonate of magnesia, for the purpose of making a white flour, are more often added by the baker than at the flour mills. These substances are often used by bakers with the idea that they are not harmful and are really needed to whiten the bread; but alum has been proved to be a distinct inhibitor of gastric digestion, and copper sulphate is, of course, dangerous. Alum is also added to bread to produce a good-looking loaf from a poor and weak flour.

Butter has not been adulterated as much as it has been imitated. The chief adulteration has consisted of adding artificial color, but except this color is aniline no deleterious results can be attributed to the coloring. Starch has occasionally been added to butter to increase its bulk. However, butter has been sophisticated under the head of "renovated butter" and oleomargarine, both of which have been sold for genuine butter. Renovated butter consists of melting any of the dairy butters of indifferent quality and coming from various sources, allowing the curd and brine to settle, scumming off the top, blowing air through the molten oil, mixing of milk with the molten fat, rapid cooling and granulating of this mixture by running it into cold water, draining and ripening of the granulated mass for a number of hours, salting and working, packing and molding into prints the same as other butter.-G. E. PATRICK, Farmers' Bulletin 131, U. S. Department of Agriculture.

Glucose is often added to butter to increase its water-holding power, and thus increase its weight, likewise to act as a preservative. Saccharine is also used as a preservative.

Oleomargarine is really not as bad a substitute for butter as many think, as it consists of animal fat, which has been used for food for generations. Beef suet is cut into cubes melted at a tempera

ture

in

fat

of 110 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours order to separate the fat from the tissues. The is drawn off and allowed to cool and solidify. The remaining oleo, after the stearine has solidified, is obtained by pressure. This oleo is then churned with milk or with genuine, butter and milk, colored with annatto and otherwise treated as butter. Neutral lard and cottonseed oil are often used for the same purpose. In reality oleomargarine is not such a bad food and is much better and cheaper for poor families than the poor grades of butter often sold for a

much higher price.-Text-Book, Hygiene.-HAR

RINGTON.

When attention is directed to the enormous production, sale and consumption of food products preserved in cans, it is at once apparent that adulteration is practiced among this class. of provisions with the greatest of ease and without much chance of detection.

Some manufacturers have gone so far as to say that it is absolutely necessary to add preservatives and colors to canned goods, else they cannot preserve or sell their products. If this is true, certainly the public is sadly in need of education as to what constitute good and wholesome articles of diet.

The most common adulterations found in canned goods, according to Prof. E. F. Ladd, of the North Dakota United States Agricultural Experiment Station, are the addition of preservatives, such as boric acid and borates, sodium sulphite, salicylic acid, saccharine, benzoic acid, formaldehyde, copper sulphate and aluminum, and the addition of artificial coloring matters, usually the aniline dyes. Glucose and gelatine comprise the base of many jellies, jams and preserves, and some are sweetened with saccharine instead of cane sugar. These artificial preservatives are found in almost all of the canned vegetables, such as peas, succotash, tomatoes, canned meats of all kinds, and catsups, preserved fruits, jellies, jams, etc., and that, too, even if preserved in glass jars.

Artificial coloring is present in French peas, due to the "greening process" with copper sulphate, and most of the so-called French peas are manufactured in this country. Sweet corn is often made from "soaked corn"—that is, dried corn soaked in water and thickened with cornstarch, bleached with sulphites or sulphurous acid fumes and sold as sweet corn, after being suitably sweetened with saccharine.

Most of the preserved strawberries, raspberries, cherries and the various fruit jellies, jams, etc., are colored with aniline dye, preserved with salicylic acid, sweetened with saccharine or glu

cose.

Maraschino cherries are usually composed of California cherries (white), hardened, pitted and stemmed, bleached with sulphurous acid, colored with aniline dye and flavored with an artificial oil of bitter almonds. Cans of tomatoes have been found to be green tomatoes of very poor quality, colored with aniline and sold for ripe tomatoes.

Most of the catsups contained salicylic acid and are colored with aniline, and consisted of pulps, seeds, skins of tomatoes, waste products generally, including pumpkin; sometimes benzoate of soda is added as a preservative and often saccharine as a sweetener.

The various prepared gelatines in all flavors are frightfully adulterated, both as regards colors and flavors. Notable among these are such products as "Jellycon," "Jell-O" and the

different powdered jellies on the market. Regarding the presence of glucose in food products, it cannot be said that it is detrimental to health, as it occurs in natural state in many fruits, but food products containing glucose should be plainly labeled as to that fact and not endeavor to deceive the public into believing that the product is pure fruit.-E. F. LADD. However, glucose can become injurious, and even poisonous, if in the process of manufacture the least trace of arsenic is introduced. This contamination usually comes from the use of impure sulphuric acid, which is used to convert starch into glucose. Instances of this kind have occurred with fatal results. In Manchester, Eng., in November, 1900, there were 3,000 cases of poisoning from beer, in which glucose was used during its preparation, the glucose being contaminated with arsenic from the sulphuric acid used to make the glucose. There were thirty-six deaths as a direct result of this contamination in Manchester.

The various prepared icings contain large amounts of artificial sweetening and artificial coloring.

According to Professor Ladd, not only canned goods, but dried fruits have come in for their share of adulteration, and prunes, apricots, raisins, peaches, etc., are artificially preserved with borates, have artificial sweetness added by saccharine and are artificially bleached with sulphurous acid fumes.

Mincemeat made from such fruits, and indeed mincemeat made from fresh materials has been found adulterated in the same manner.

Regarding the use of saccharine, granatose or coal-tar sugar, the universal opinion of therapeutists and health authorities is that it is in no sense a food, being eliminated from the body unchanged and may give rise to nephritis in passing out through the kidney. Dr. Wiley states that its use should be absolutely prohibited.

The manufacturers of saccharine advertise it as follows: "A perfect sweetener, pure, refined, five hundred and fifty times as sweet as sugar, healthful, economical, uniform, possesses antiseptic and preservative properties; will not ferment or sour."-E. F. LADD, North Dakota.

As to the other preservatives, including formaldehyde, found in canned goods, nothing but condemnation for the addition of such deleterious and poisonous chemicals can be said.

Molasses, honey and maple sugar are often adulterated with glucose. Maple sugar is flavored with an extract of hickory bark and largely made up of brown sugar.

Honey is often pure glucose flavored. Molasses may have poisonous properties, due to the "salt of tin" used in clearing and lightening the product, or may be present in the "foot" or sugar sediment from which often cheap candies are made, or as a contamination of sugar refineries where tin is used to whiten the sugar, the tin being carried over into the molasses. As re

gards confectionery, especially the cheaper varieties, it suffices to say that candy made from the refuse of sugar refineries scraped from the floors, as it often is, artificially flavored and colored with aniline dyes or chromates of lead and potassium, cannot represent a proper diet for those of tender age.

The aniline colors often used are naphthalene yellow, metalin yellow, orange 11 or egg yellow D, azo-rubine, purple aniline, etc. The vegetable colors which are used and are perfectly harmless are named in the recent "Fruit Syrup Bill" introduced in Pennsylvania, and include, when not added in larger quantity than onequarter of 1 per cent., such substances as cochineal, caramel, tumeric, cudbear, beets, saffron, spinachete. Of late a beautiful green vegetable color is said to be obtained by using hemp seed.

Not long since I was called to see a little girl of 2 years who had eaten a large yellow Easter egg the evening previous and who was taken. violently ill early in the morning with vomiting and purging, the stools being streaked with blood and watery. No other assignable cause could be found, and the supposition was that aniline or chromate of lead had entered into the coloring of the egg. She had a severe illness, lasting nearly a week, accompanied with much pain.

Glucose and saccharine are largely used, also paraffine, especially in the preparation of "butter scotch."

In the course of conversation with a candymaker's family I was much amused to learn that when children required candy a "special without color" was brought from the candy shop, but the same candy was colored for the trade, clearly showing that the makers know the harmfulness of the artificial flavors and colors used.

The various flavoring extracts also come in for their share of adulteration.

The most common-extract of vanilla-is often nothing but an alcoholic extract of coumarin or tonka colored with caramel. Extract of lemon is often made of nothing but alcohol artificially flavored and colored with aniline yellow. In an interesting report of Wood and Buller in the Journal of the A. M. A. last year it was clearly shown, also, that some extracts of lemon did not contain even pure alcohol, but unscrupulous dealers had been base enough to further adulterate it by using Columbian spirits or deodorized wood alcohol, and they called attention to a number of cases of blindness and death resulting from the drinking of essence of lemon as a substitute for alcoholic liquors, with the above-stated results.

The other flavors, such as strawberry, pineapple, raspberry, are mainly made of alcohol and various ethers colored with coal-tar dyes the desired shade. Extract of almonds has been imitated by using a nitrobenzol, and many instances are on record of the poisonous effects resulting.

Dr. William J. Stone, of Toledo, O., describes nitrobenzol "as a product obtained in the intermediate stage in the production of benzine, a constituent of coal tar produced by the action of nitric acid on benzine, has the odor of oil of bitter almonds and is often used in flavoring almond cake, confectionery, cheap soaps, such as almond glycerine soap, and in cheap perfume."

A striking instance of the effects of nitrobenzol was noted last year in the A. M. A. Journal in the case of a lady who was tasting a bottle of flavor, but, finding the sensation burning and bitter, expectorated all but a drop or so, but spilled a tablespoonful on the closet shelf. The lady and a servant inhaled the fumes; both women were rendered unconscious and the lady was ill for many weeks. As these flavors are used in ice-cream, cake, candy, at the soda fountain and in bottled soft drinks, it can easily be seen how much harm can result. Many of the soft drinks, moreover, have an added danger from the fact that vegetable or mineral acids are used in their preparation as well as aniline colors, which, acting upon the usual lead stopper supplied with the bottles, presents the possibility of lead poisoning from a combination with the acid contents of the bottles.

When attention is directed to beverages as tea, coffee, cocoa, wine, beer, whisky, brandy and the various malt preparations, it is a wonder that these articles are not adulterated to a greater extent than at present, owing to the comparative ease with which such adulteration can be done. Dr. Wiley, of the United States Department of Agriculture, states that most of the coffee sold in this country under different names, as Java, Mocha, Maracaibo, etc., are nothing more or less than Brazilian coffee which can be bought at wholesale for 12 cents per pound. The same coffee retails often for 40 cents. Chicory is another common adulterant. Coffee beans are pressed out of a flour and water mixture into the shape of coffee and sold as coffee. Tea is mixed with leaves of other plants and herbs, but can be detected very easily by examining the leaves after steeping them. The most common practice is to color tea leaves which have been used once, dry and polish them and sell them as new tea. Of course, deleterious coloring matters are thus often used.

Cocoa and chocolate, instead of being cocoa nibs ground up and used pure, are often an ad

mixture

of cocoa, starch, cornstarch and foreign

is not normal or healthful or that is deleterious or detrimental to health, and in the case of ales or beer any substitute for hops; in the case of wines it specially provides against any artificial preservatives, or which is the product of other than the fermentation of pure fruit juice, or the addition of such substances as alum, baryta, salts, caustic lime, carbonate of soda, carbonic acid, salts of lead, glycerine, salicylic acid or other antiseptic, artificial color or flavor, essence of ether or any other substance detrimental to health.

Yet in the face of such an admirable law we find almost all of these adulterations practiced to a surprising degree.

Whisky made of wood alcohol, a sad instance of which was furnished in New York City last fall, when twenty-five deaths occurred from the sale of this kind of whisky at a corner saloon. Wood and Buller report similar conditions in Indian Territory and various other localities in the United States. Wines preserved with salicylic acid are served at many of the restaurants in the larger cities.

Beer artificially bittered and charged with carbonic acid gas is sold for the real article.

A striking instance of preservatives in a nonalcoholic drink often ordered for the sick is grape juice, which was found by Professor Ladd, of North Dakota, to be preserved with salicylic acid and benzoic acid in varying quantities.

Root beer, birch beer and many other soft drinks are likewise preserved and artificially colored and flavored.

Blackberry cordials are invariably adulterated, preserved and colored with coal-tar dye.

It will thus be seen that the laws in regard to fermented and unfermented beverages in this and other States have very little effect on the manufacturers of these products.

Another interesting field still uninvestigated is the food value of prepared food products for infants and invalids.

Such articles as the various beef extracts made and exploited by many of the meat-packing establishments already alluded to as adulterating food products should be investigated. Is it to be supposed that these concerns would be any more eager to furnish a pure and wholesome product for the sick? In reality the beef extracts are little more than extractives and uric acid, representing no actual food value and probably acting merely as a stimulant, but throwing extra work on the excretory organs to eliminate the excess of uric acid taken into the

tion

of alcoholic beverages is examined it is obvious that an entire paper devoted to this investigation would not cover all that might be said concerning it.

Suffice, however, to say that the pure food law of this State represents and defines the character of most of these adulterants; the law specifies that spirituous and malt liquors shall not contain any substance or ingredient which

analysis has as yet been made in this regard, but undoubtedly such adulteration exists. Various beef, iron and wines are on the market which are merely very poor wines, and the amount of beef and iron found in the residue after evaporation of the alcoholic portion is very infinitesimal.

Many of the peptonates of iron so largely used to-day are in reality merely aromatized wines, in which it would be impossible to find true pep

tonate of iron; in fact, it is stated that many pharmacists put up peptonate of iron by mixing essence of pepsin and tincture ferri chloridi, making a so-called "peptonate of iron."

In addition to the beef extracts, the liquid preparations purporting to be concentrated beef and cereals predigested and in easily assimilable form for those sick and in need of nourishment at frequent intervals have proved to be of questionable value.

In this connection it is interesting to note how such bogus food products have been advertised and sampled by many of these firms who have adroitly sent emissaries in the shape of the ubiquitous traveling salesman to teach the physicians the value of preparations whose process of manufacture is known only to the firm. Of course, the agent heralds his preparation in glowing terms and can even produce testimonials of men prominent in the profession to substantiate his statements, and indeed he may explain how many pounds of beef are consumed in the manufacture of the product, but how few physicians have the time or take the pains to inquire as to the truth of these statements.

In January, 1903, Dr. Charles Harrington undertook some experiments regarding the alcoholic content of the proprietary foods for the sick, his attention being called to the fact by the semi-intoxicated condition of a patient under his care who was being fed largely upon one of these foods. The results of his analyses were published in the March, 1903, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, and are as follows:

It is very evident from these figures that a patient taking the maximum daily dose advised on the labels gets the equivalent of 1.25 ounces of nutriment and the alcoholic equivalent of six ounces of whisky. Is it any wonder that Dr. Harrington's patient was semi-intoxicated most of the time, and that, too, in the face of the fact that she was receiving no alcoholic stimulants?

It would seem in the light of these analyses that we as physicians are not giving the attention which is due to the question of proper food for invalids and those sick with acute diseases, and relying too much upon the statements of agents and firms in regard to actual food value of their products, thereby jeopardizing the lives of those under our care.

What with formalinized milk and alcoholic beef mixtures, a typhoid patient stands but a poor chance for life in these days. Personally, I have had several typhoid patients refuse abso

lutely to take liquid peptonoids, predigested beef, etc., mainly on account of the large amount of alcohol in these proprietary foods.

When the subject of prepared foods for infants is mentioned, the wonder is that physicians are as fortunate as they are in making a selection from the many hundreds of such foods placed upon the market.

Many of these foods state absolutely that the starch is converted into dextrose, lactose, etc., but in reality most of them contain a goodly proportion of unchanged starch which any physician can demonstrate by making a solution of any one of them and adding a little Lugol's solution of iodine thereto. Personally, I have examined some of them and found starch frequently in preparations distinctly labeled as containing no starch.

It is impossible to trust to the manufacturers' statements as to this matter, and whenever the question of using these proprietary foods for an infant under our care is under consideration it would be just as well to use the simple starch test before advising the product as a proper food for an infant whose powers of digesting starch are not as yet developed. If every doctor did his duty in this regard, I am sure some, if not all, such so-called infant foods would disappear, and when we needed a dextrinized starch to dilute our modified milk mixtures to attenuate the curd the "prepared food" would be prepared at home under the supervision of the mother whose only interest would be her child, and not the rush after money in this age of "frenzied finance."

Diabetic flours have also been largely adulterated, and almost all, instead of being gluten, as claimed, contain very near as much starch as ordinary flours and are sold at enormous prices to diabetics by reckless misstatements and deliberate fraud. From New Hampshire State Board Analysis.

Keeping pace with the food products the annual production and sale of drugs and chemicals has likewise increased to an enormous extent, and with even more opportunities for adulteration than in the case of food, with very much less chance of detection and very much greater prospects of financial emolument.

Professor Bailey, in the Bulletin of Pharmacy for January, 1905, mentions the different adulterations of drugs as accidental, necessary, C. P., chemicals of lowered standard and intentional adulterations. He very pertinently asks the question if any of the supposed necessary adulterations are really needed. As for instance, the addition of coloring agents, always useless and often injurious, to color syrups, tinctures, pills, and even soap and whisky. He claims that it is mainly that the public has been wrongly educated as to the proper appearance of many such articles.

In regard to the accidental adulterations, deteriorated and spent drugs he states that it is unfair to ask the purchaser to pay for 5 to 15 per