Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]
[graphic][merged small]

THE

ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA.

A

ADULTERATION OF FOOD. During recent years there has been a great popular outcry in regard to the injurious adulteration of various articles of food, and the newspapers and health journals have been filled with sensational statements of the vast amount of dangerous impurities to be found in our food-supply. As a fact, few articles of food are so adulterated as to be hurtful to health; they are more commonly sophisticated by the intermixture of other substances in a manner chiefly injurious to commercial interests. It is necessary to distinguish clearly between these two classes of deceptions, so as to estimate the danger from adulteration, and to provide proper safeguards against it. Impurities of food may be divided into three classes: 1. Deleterious adulterations, such as the use of red-lead in cayenne pepper, or chromate of lead in mustard. 2. By far the largest class, fraudulent adulterations, illustrated by the use of flour in mustard, chicory in coffee, and terra alba in cream of tartar. 3. Accidental adulterations, due to the mixture of small amounts of deleterious substances, owing to some imperfection in the process of manufacture. In these cases the amount of impurity is limited, and the effect is unimportant.

The following statistics show the prevalence and proportion of adulteration of food as revealed by recent official investigations abroad and at home. In March, 1883, out of 1,118 articles examined at the Paris laboratory by Government officials, 271 were returned as good, 231 as passable, 616 as bad, of which 545 were "not injurious," and 71 were pronounced injurious. Wines formed by far the largest portion of articles examined, and, as a rule, were reported as deficient in purity. Of 257 samples of milk, 26 were returned as good, 116 as passable, and 115 as bad, but not injurious. In Great Britain, since 1875, the Government returns show the following number of articles analyzed, and the percentage of adulteration:

VOL. XXIV.-1 A

[blocks in formation]

These totals do not represent foods exclusively, for drugs, wines, spirits, and beer are included, nor do they cover the whole of Great Britain. As a result of the past five years' official supervision in that country, the amount of adulteration was reduced only 1.2 per cent. Of the samples of milk analyzed, the per cent. of adulterated varied from 26 in 1877 to 20.35 in 1882; butter, including oleomargarine sold as butter, 12 to 15 per cent.; groceries, 13 to 10 per cent.; bread and flour, 6.84 to 4.32 per cent. In Canada, as a result mainly of publishing the names of dealers in impure articles, the amount of adulteration has been greatly reduced. In 1876, when the work began, 51.66 per cent. of the articles examined were adulterated. In 1882 these figures had been reduced to 25 66 per cent.

The reports of State analysts in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, and other States, all of late date, indicate that staple articles of food, such as are found in ordinary households, are rarely adulterated with injurious substances. The sophistication of such articles would be about as follows: Spices and condiments, 66 per cent.; ground coffee, 45 per cent.; tea, 48 per cent.; sugar, the highest grades rarely, the lower grades, 20 per cent.; sirup, 50 per cent.; milk, when not inspected, 50 per cent.; flour, none; bread, about 2 per cent.; cream of tartar and baking-powders, 44 per cent.; butter, 40 per cent. (by the substitution of other fats); vinegar is rarely adulterated, but is seldom made of cider; oliveoil, 60 per cent.

The character of the adulterants employed

is as follows: Spices and condiments are adulterated with exhausted spices; ground cereals with flour and buckwheat hulls; coffee with chicory, rye, and other cereals; tea with exhausted tea-leaves, leaves of other plants, and damaged tea coated to improve the looks; sugar with grape-sugar; sirup with grape-sugar, in many cases all glucose; milk with water, alkaline salts to neutralize acidity, and preservatives, and it is often skimmed; bread with alum, added to increase whiteness, rarely used in this country; cream of tartar and bakingpowders with gypsum, starches, and "fillers" to increase bulk; butter, other fats are substituted for it, or it is adulterated with foreign fats; olive-oil with peanut and cotton-seed oil. In addition to these articles, several new and peculiar substances are largely used for sophistication. Oleomargarine, for example, is manufactured on an enormous scale. Three factories alone in New York State turn out not less than 4,500 tons a year, and there are five or six other factories in the country. But a small portion of their product is sold to the consumer for what it really is. Fears have been expressed that animal parasites, or diseases, might be introduced into the human system by the use of this substitute for butter; but the best authorities declare that there is no such danger from the use of oleomargarine. As the aim of the manufacturers is to produce a sweet and merchantable article, the use of putrid or illsmelling fat would be against their interests. Nevertheless, the propriety of compelling dealers to label all packages of oleomargarine with its true name is generally recognized. Lardcheese, made by combining lard and oleomargarine-oil, and "lardine," an artificial butter, are also largely manufactured. The production of glucose exceeds that of oleomargarine. It is estimated that ten pounds of glucose per capita is made and sold each year in the United States. It is largely employed in making sirups, strained honey, confectionery, and the lower grades of sugar. Prof. C. F. Chandler, and other chemists, pronounce glucose to be a harmless article of food. The frequent statements that sulphuric acid has been found in large and poisonous quantities in glucose sirups, are denied. "Sulphuric acid is employed in the conversion of starch into grape-sugar, but the acid is afterward neutralized by means of milk of lime. If any acid exists in the sirup, it is either in combination with the lime or free, and in very small quantities—a condition strenuously avoided by the manufacturers."

Cases of acute poisoning have been repeatedly charged to the influence of canned foods. Certain acid fruits in cans, such as apples and cherries, and vegetables like tomatoes, act upon lead or tin, and dissolve enough of the metal to cause vomiting, purging, and cramps. Such cases, however, are rare, in view of the enormous consumption of canned products, especially in the West, and in the army and

navy.* It is proposed, as a safeguard, to require the year in which the can was packed to be stamped on it.

Besides investigating the character of domestic food-supply, sanitary officials have recently been.led to take cognizance of the methods of production and distribution, especially of bread and milk. Bake-shops are usually in cellars, artificially lighted, and are often damp, foul, and unwholesome. They are sometimes used as sleeping-places, and the bakers work long hours and are exposed to sickness, especially from skin-diseases. Dr. W. K. Newton, HealthOfficer of Paterson, who has visited several such places, reports: "In one place we find the cat and dog asleep in the kneading-trough, fowls running around and perching on the various utensils, and a general air of filth and lack of thrift. In one shop the kneading-trough was connected with the sewer by means of an untrapped waste-pipe. In another the soil-pipe had burst, and the floor was flooded with liquid filth. The baker said, 'That always happens after a rain-storm.' I have seen a baker mixing his bread with hand and arm covered with the eruption of eczema. He said, 'The doctor told me the dough was good for the disease.' Frequent inspection of such places, as also of dairies, is essential to the public health."

It is barely thirteen years since it was discovered that milk was a potent carrier of infection, yet in a paper read by Ernest Hart, of London, before the International Medical Congress in 1881, it was said that fifty epidemics of typhoid fever, fifteen of scarlatina, and seven of diphtheria had been traced to this source. The total number of cases occurring during these epidemics was 4,800. In one instance reported in the London "Lancet," October, 1883, 220 cases of typhoid fever were traced to a single dairy. Adulteration of milk is confined chiefly to the addition of water, preservatives, alkalies, and to the abstraction of cream. While not directly harmful to health, such adulteration seriously interferes with the nourishment of infants through the impoverishment of the milk, and is believed to be a prime factor in causing the terrible infant mortality in large cities. Harmful results also follow from the use of milk produced from cows fed on distillery-waste, or otherwise improperly cared for, while milk from diseased cows, especially those suffering from tuberculosis, is very dangerous. It is proposed that all milkdealers and dairies should be registered and kept under constant sanitary supervision.

The latest document on the subject of milkadulteration in New York city, "Report on

* A United States Army officer says: "There is hardly a military station in the land where officers and soldiers and their families do not habitually use canned foods; and, as a class, army people are, without doubt. the largest consumers of canned articles, in proportion to their number, of any in the country. In all my army experience (and for many years I have been chief commissary of a military department, and as such had charge of supplying posts with all their subsist poisoning in the army." ence), I have never known or heard of a case of canned-goods

Fresh and Condensed Milk," by Charles E. Munsell, Ph. D., says that the daily consumption of milk in the metropolis, in summer, is 500,000 quarts, which retails at from six to ten cents, representing $35,000 a day, or $1,250,000 a year. Formerly one fourth water would be added to this supply, so that the money-saving to the public from official regulation can thus be estimated.

As a result of the strict surveillance of the health authorities, it is rare for the inspectors to find sophisticated milk in retail stores. The public, also, are becoming alive to the quality of the supply, and will not be content with poor milk. No fewer than fifty small dealers now sell pure milk at but little above cost (five cents a quart in summer, as an advertisement), and it is believed that many others will do so, which will prove a great boon to the children of the poor in the hot weather.

Meat inspection in markets is provided for in most large cities; but there is not sufficient surveillance of slaughter-houses and examination of cattle before or immediately after killing to prevent the sale of impure and diseased ineat.

Adulteration of food has only recently become a subject of popular interest and legal action in the United States, though it has been discussed and legislated upon in other countries for a long time. In most European countries, laws have long existed to control the manufacture and sale of food. In England, laws to prevent adulteration were passed in 1860 and 1872. The statute now in force was enacted in 1875, and modified in 1879. The laws in force in the United States were based upon these recent English enactments. In Great Britain, public analysts appointed by local authorities are required to examine a certain number of samples each year, for a stated sum. If these are found to be adulterated, complaint is made to a magistrate, and the offender is prosecuted. The appointment of an analyst is obligatory on the local authorities, but while such appointments are usually made, in many instances no work is allotted, owing to lack of sympathy with the work or to the penuriousness of the authorities. The results obtained, therefore, are not wholly satisfactory. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and other of the older States have long had laws relating to the adulteration of food, and prohibiting the sale of unwholesome meats and provisions, while nearly every State places restrictions upon the weight and other commercial qualities of flour, bacon, lard, salt, etc. In 1879 a prize of $1,000 was offered by the National Board of Trade for the best essay on food-adulteration, and for the best form of a law prohibiting the same. Such a law was drafted, and finally adopted by the Legislatures of New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, in 1881-'82. A modification of the same law, adapted to the Territories and other sections of the country under the charge of

the General Government, was submitted to Congress in 1883-'84, but failed to pass. An act prohibiting the importation of damaged and adulterated tea was adopted, and has been successfully enforced. The State laws just referred to define what is meant by adulteration in the case of food or drugs, give State boards of health power to exempt certain articles that are recognized as not injurious to health, and authorize them to appoint analysts and inspectors. The time has been too short to test fairly the operation of these acts, and from insufficiency of funds they have not accomplished all the results that might have been expected. Only a few prosecutions have taken place under them, and their validity has not yet been tested before the higher courts. The best authorities seem to agree that adulteration should be treated chiefly from the commercial, rather than from the sanitary stand-point, and that so far as possible the elaborate machinery, inevitable delay, and cost incident upon a large corps of inspectors and analysts, should be saved. Dr. E. R. Squibb, a high authority on the subject, remarks that the chief aim of all legislation in this direction should be to deter persons from attempting the practice of adulteration, rather than to punish them after committing the act. "The motive power of all adulteration is pecuniary profit or gain, and not to endanger or damage health at all. That adulterations do endanger health, is a mere accident. . . . If the penalty be sufficient and sufficiently sure to make the risk of punishment greater than the profit will warrant, the design to adulterate will be abandoned, and the law will have its natural and wholesome success." Simple exposure through the press of persons guilty of adulteration is the most potent means to this end, as has been found in Canada, where greater success has been achieved in checking adulteration than anywhere else.

In Germany a bill for the prevention of adulteration, based on the English enactments, has been passed. A humorous story current in that country illustrates the extent of adulteration there. It is to the effect that three flies feasted, the first on flour, the second on sugar, and the third on fly-poison; and the last was the only one that survived!

AFGHANISTAN, a monarchy in central Asia, occupying a mountainous country between the Oxus and Indus valleys. It is the only remaining territory separating the Russian possessions in Asia from the Indian Empire. The ruler is Abdurrahman Khan, Ameer of Afghanistan, whose residence is at Cabul. He was placed on the throne under the protection of the British Government, after the conquest of the country in the Anglo-Afghan war of 1878-'79, and the abdication of his predecessor, Yakub Khan. The extent and population of Afghanistan can not be determined even by estimates, as there are no fixed boundaries, and many of the outlying tribes, which have at some time

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »