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FOODS AND THEIR ADULTERATION

WILEY

From "Science," New York:

Seldom has a more timely book appeared than this, following so closely as it does the beginning of the enforcement of the new national pure-food law. For some time prior to the passage of this law public interest throughout the country had become vitally awakened to the importance of the pure-food issue. Amid a large mass of confusing and often exaggerated newspaper articles dealing with the subject, it is a comfort to find a book covering the field so completely, so sanely and withal in so interesting a way.

While the manual, by the author's statement, is not especially designed for the expert chemist, and chemical terms are carefully explained for the benefit of the public, yet the food analyst will need the book on his shelves for reference. From the chemist's standpoint, the many tables and results showing the composition of the various food products are especially useful for comparison. In many cases also are given some of the latter and more improved tests for adulteration, which in some instances have not hitherto been so readily available.

The book treats systematically and quite exhaustively of all the principal food products, dealing in turn with their manufacture, properties and composition, forms of adulteration and dietetic value, and including much information of a general nature concerning them. Beginning with the animal foods, it thus covers meats and the various meat preparations, fish, milk and its products and oleomargarine. Then follow the vegetable foods, cereals, vegetables proper, condiments, fruits, sugar, syrup, confectionery, honey, and finally infants' and invalids' foods.

*

Though destined for a wide variety of readers, the book is apparently designed first of all for the benefit of the public, at a time when the public wants particularly to know about its food; and written as it is from a strictly scientific standpoint, yet in a popular way, by one who from long experience knows so thoroughly his subject, it will be widely read and to great advantage by the people as consumers.

Not only does the author cover the ground directly suggested by the title, but in a general and useful way gives throughout much information about food values and the use of food for bodily nourishment. The colored plates illustrating the appearance of cuts of healthy beef, for example, will be found especially helpful to the householder.

To the food manufacturer and dealer the book is almost indispensable, since it describes very plainly the methods of preparation and standards of purity, the effects of storage, and, in addition, gives much good and sound advice regarding what might be termed controversial forms of adulteration, such as chemical preservatives and artificial coloring, called controversial because their use with restricted labels has to some extent been legalized under some of the state laws, and because they have for years formed the subject of much difference of opinion among experts in food litigation.

FOODS AND

THEIR ADULTERATION

ORIGIN, MANUFACTURE, AND COMPOSITION OF
FOOD PRODUCTS; INFANTS' AND INVALIDS'
FOODS: DETECTION OF COMMON
ADULTERATIONS, AND FOOD

STANDARDS

BY

HARVEY W. WILEY, M.D., PH.D.

WITH ELEVEN COLORED PLATES AND
EIGHTY-SEVEN OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged

PHILADELPHIA

P. BLAKISTON'S SON & CO.

1012 WALNUT STREET

1911

COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY P. BLAKISTON'S SON & Co.

WM. F. FELL & CO.,
ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS,
1220-24 SANSOM STREET,
PHILADELPHIA.

167

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The text of the body of this work has been carefully revised and the statistical matter brought up to date. Many of the paragraphs have been entirely re-written, but in general the text and the sequence of the articles remain as in the first edition. Two new parts of importance have been added to the volume, taking the place of the regulations for inspection and the rules and regulations for the enforcement of the Food and Drugs Act, which are now of such wide distribution as to need no place in this work.

The space so saved by the exclusion of these appendices has been given. to an expansion of the article on infants' and invalids' foods and to a new part devoted to simple tests for ordinary adulterations which may be practiced with some degree of success in the household.

In the section devoted to infants' and invalids' foods an attempt has been made to describe in a practical way the preparation and care of foods of this class, accentuating meanwhile the supreme importance of the natural supply of milk for infants under the age of one year, or where this is denied the substitution of wholesome, fresh cow's milk, modified to resemble, as nearly as possible, the natural sustenance of the infant. The composition of some of the principal substitutes for the natural foods of infants has been given with a note of warning as to the danger of the employment of even the best of these foods to the exclusion of nature's natural food supply.

This article has been written with no spirit of antagonism towards the prepared foods for infants, but only to bring promptly before the mind of the lay reader, as pointedly as possible, the supreme importance of using the natural food even when an artificial preparation resembles it as nearly as can be.

The article on invalids' foods has been written in the light of recent medical studies, which show that wholesome food is not only the best prophylactic but also in many cases, especially of chronic diseases, the best remedy at the service of the physician. Proper nutrition is extremely effective in preventing some forms of disease, and proper feeding, based on scientific principles, the most effective remedy.

In the treatment of this subject care has been taken to avoid the danger into which so many writers fall of uttering dicta regarding nutrition which

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