Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-24
THE DAILY RECORD-UNION
CHEERFUL REVELATIONS AS TO FOOD.

George I. Angel read a paper recently
before the American Social Science Asso-
citation at Boston on Public Health Asso-
cations, in which he made some startling
assertions about the adulteration OF food.
He said
Cayenne pepper is adulterated with red
lead, mustard with chromate of lead, curry
powder with red lead, vinegar with sui
phuric acid, arsenic and corrosive sub
Innate. 1t is stated that probably half the
vinegar now sold in our cities is rank
poison. One OF our Boston chemists
analysed twelve packages of pickles, put
up by twelve different wholesale dealers,
and found copper in ten of them. Many
of our favorrng oils, sirups, iellies and
preserved fruits contain poisons The
authorizations of tea are too numerous to
mention. Coffee is not only adulterated,
but patent has been taken out for mold
ing chicory into the form of coffee berries,
and am told that clay is now nodded,
and perhaps favored with an essence, to
represent coffee. Cocoa and chocolate are
adulterated with various mineral substances.
Several mills in New England, and prob
ably many elsewhere, are now engaged
grinding white stone into fine powder for
purposes of adulteratlon. At some of these
mills they grind three grades-soda grade,
sugar grade aud -four grade. It sells for
about half cent pound. Flour has been
adulterated in England, and probably here,
with plaster of Paris, bone-dust, sand,
clay, chalk and other articles. | am told
that large quantities of damaged and I'M
wholesome grain are ground in with flour,
particularly with that kind called Graham
flour. Certainly hundreds, and probably
thousands, of barrels of "terra alba, ;"
or white earth, are sold in our
cities every year, to be mixed with
sugars in confectionery and other
white substances. | am told by an emf
nent physician that this tends to produce
stone, kidney complaints and various dis
eases of the stomach A Boston chemist
tells me that he has found IS per cent. of
terra alba in what was sold as cream of
tartar, used for cooking. a large New
York house sells three grades of cream of
tartar. A Boston chemist recently an
alyzed sample of the best grade, and
found 80 per cent. of terra alba in that.
Much of our confectionery contains SO per
cent. of terra alba. The coloring matter
of confectionery frequently contains lead,
mercury, arsenic and copper. Baking pow
y
percentage of terra alba and alum.
1t is not water alone that is mixed with
the milk Thousands of gallons, and prob
ably hundreds of thousands, are sold III
our cities which have passed through large
tins, or watts, in which it has been mixed
with various substances. Receipts for the
mixture can be bought by new milkmen
from old on payment of the required sum.
I rvba Oh / half 70 1oa
liable authority, that thousands of gallons
of so.called milk have been, and probably
are, sold in this city, which do not contain
one drop of the genuine article. Large
quantities of the meats of animals more
or less diseased are sold in our markets.
Cows in the neighborhood of our large city
are fed upon material which produces a
large flow OF unwholesome milk. Poultry
are fed upon material which produces
unwholesome eggs. Meats and fish are
made unwho.esome, frequently poison
Gus, by careless and cruel methods of
killing. A California chemist recent
ly analysed many samples of whisky,
purchased at different places in San Fran
cisco. He found them adulterated with
creosote, salts of copper, alum and other
injurious substances. He states it, in his
puoIlSueu report, as his opinion bhdJ IntIe
is hardly any pure whisky sold in that city.
A gentleman recently purchased from a
prominent Boston firm cask of pure
sherry wine for his sick wife. His wife
grew worse. He had the wine analysed,
and found that there was not drop of the
juice of the grape in it. An eminent medi-
cal gentleman of Boston said to me "The
authorizations of drugs in this country are
perfectly abominable." 1 say that laws
should be enacted and enforced prohibiting
the manufacture and sale of these poisonous
and dangerous articles under severe penal
ties, and compelling the manufacturers and
sellers of adulterated articles to tell buy
ers the precise character of the adultera-
tiOuS