The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1879-11-20
HOW WE ARE POISONED DAILY.

HOW WE ARE POISONED DAILY.
The Things We Eat, Drink and Wear All
Are Mediums for Conveying Poisons to
Our Systems.
From the Cincinnati COMMERCIAL
At one of the sessions of the Social
Science Association, which this year met
at Syracuse, n. Y, Mr.. George 7. An
gell-of Boston read an interesting pa
per on the Manufacture and Sale of
Poisonous and Dangerously Adulterated
Articles" These pOisons, he said, are
found in our food, our drink, our cloth
ing, in the cooking utensils used in our
kitchens, in the pipes that carry our
water, in the carpets and wall papers
that beautify our houses, and in the col
ored papers and toys which are the play
things of our children. These danger
Gus but cheaper articles are gradually
driving the safer but more expensive
ones out of our markets. As an evil
dence of how extensively groceries were
adulterated he quoted from the report
of the Canadian Commissioner of Inter
nal Revenue for 1877, in which it was
stated that 81 out of 10S articles ana
lyzed were found to be adulterated
Very few groceries are wholly pure.
The GrOcGr'S Manual publishes some of
the adulterations. The cream of tartar
found on sale, it says, is seldom more
than 30 per cent. pure, the remainder
being terra GJ6a, or white earth, and
other adulterants. Cayenne pepper is
debased with red ocher, cinnabar, YER
million and sulphuret of mercury, and
the color preserved by red lead and
Venetian red Coffee is adulterated
with pea flour colored with Venetian
red. Liquors and wines are generally
a gh Nsrhf i'll
Milk is adulterated with water, flour,
starch, gum, turmeric, chalk, sugar,
carbonate of soda, and cerebral matter !;
and cream is made by the use of gum
Mustard is seldom sold pure. Preserved
meats are colored with ocher and red
lead. Bottles labeled Worcestershire
sauce, etc, are often filled with stuff
favored with dangerous chemicals.
Soaps contain poisonous cOloring mat
ter that produces skin diseases. Teas
are colored and doctored, largely in
New York and Philadelphia, with arsen-
late of copper, verdigris, mineral
green, Prussian blue, tale, clay, soap
stone, and numerous other articles
Much of the tobacco which men roll like
sweet morsel under their tongues is
made out of the leaves of other plants
TO which are added chromate of lead
oxide of lead, etc. Half the vinegar
sold in the large cities, it is asserted, is
rank poison, made from preparations o.
lead, copper and oil of Vitriol. These
statements were made in the Manual il
the interest of grocers.
MIR. Angel says that personal friend
who is a partner in one of the larges
importing tea houses in Boston, and wa,
for n time a resident in China, said Il
him that neither himself nor any mem
ber of his firm would drink any thing
but the natural uncolored teas; thai
while the teas are usually adulterateC
before they reach this country, they ar,
further adulterated and poisoned aftel
they arrive here. The public tast
which demands colored teas shoult
know that some of them contain prussi
acid. England has shut out thes
spurious teas, and they are now mOstl
being sent to America. Not only
ground coffee adulterated, but machine
have been invented and are in use i
this country that mold authorizations int
ths form of coffee berries Coffee
oft D adulterated with chiccory, which
itsea adulterated with articles NOR
dangerous.
Much of the sugar sold in stores con
tains glucose sometimes called crap
su@ar'0 and muriate of tin. Glucose
81, ,352 in 1875 TO $233, $50 (and vas
quantities are also manufactured in tn
United States), is made by boiling corr
starch with sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol,
and then mixing it with lime. 1t
used largely to adulterate can
sugars and sirups professor /
c. Kedzie, of the Michigan Stat
Board of Health, by analysis, found !
out OF II specimens of common tab
sirupS to be made of glucose, one of til
10 containing l4l grains of oil of vitri,
and 724 grains of lime to the gallon
maple-sugar, candies, jellieS, hone,
etc. 1t is said to produce Bright's di
ease of the kidney Baking-powd'
often contains alum, terra alba, insoll
ble phosphate of lime, etc. Mr.. Ange
says that there are, in various parts
the United States, mills that are evel
year grinding thousands of tons
white stone into fine powder, which sci
for half a cent a pound, and that
some of these mills are ground thr
grades, called soda grade, sugar gra,
and flour grade.
a Boston sanitary commission, fe
years ago, estimated that in that CT
$500, 900 a year was paid for wat
mixed with milk; and this years I
port of the Milk Inspector for the SAL
city says the amount paid during Ii
year was over S6SO,0 Mr.. Angel
Inmates that some of this water &C
tanned lead poison, and may have be
taken from wells which receive t
drainage of cess-pools. He says he b
evidence that over 80 per cent. of
the milk sold in at least two of our lar
cities is adulterated before it reaches {
consumer. Largely from this cau
doubtless, results the enormous dea
rate of children in the cities.
II would naturally be supposed tha
the pure article could anywhere