Morning journal and courier., 1880-12-18
HAVEN SATURDAY. .AORNING. DECENiBER
Saturday Morning, Dec. IS. 1880.
ADULTERATION.

A committee appointed by the National Board of Trade to award prize for the best essay upon the adulteration of food and drugs, together with the draft of a proposed bill for the detection and punishment of such adulteration, made the cheering statement in their report that none of the essayists pro- duced any definite or satisfactory evidence as to the widespread existence of very danger ous adulterations in this country. The ab- sence of such evidence, in addition to the results recently obtained by expert chemists in extensive series of analyses of the usual articles of food in this country, led the com mittee to declare that none of the staple ar ticles of food or drink are commonly adul- terated so as to be dangerous to health or life.
 Professor Chandler, of the New York Board of Health, was member of the com mittee and agreed with the report made. He thinks there is misapprehension as to the ex- tent to which food articles are adulterated, and gives an account of experiments made by him in New York which go to show that such is Cor at least was) the case. He spent year in the work. He collected one hundred sam- ples of bread, one hundred of flour, one hun dred of sugar, coffee, and so forth through the whole list of groceries. Love of truth, he says, eompels him to admit that the adul- terations practiced were in almost every in stance trifing and perfectly harmless. There were some exceptions to this rule. Some sugar refners used salt of tin to give brilliancy to their granulated sugar. The tin remained in he, Lo h. from gallon of molasses piece of tin ''big enough to cut persons throat,' and from one quart of molasses lump of tin (which, if shot out of gun, would easily kill man." In sugar he found but little adulteration, and the story was the same throughout the list. Among the rest forty samples of liquor were analysed, and some of the Baxter street champagne" was found to be pretty poor stuff. Says Professor Chandler: 1.-The whole outcome of my years work upon the food of New York was not startling, resulting in only one move of great value, and not con- nected with food-the prevention of the sale of poor kerosene. I managed to convince the public that kerosene was dangerous, only because the oil refiners did not choose to make it safe. The Fire department now manages to prevent the sale of much oil be- low certain grade. Nevertheless poor oil is sold, and the first thing the coroner ought to do when notified of death from an oil-lamp explosion is to arrest the person who sold the oil to the victim.",ss
 These examinations by Professor Chandler were made several years ago, but he does not believe that adulteration is commoner to-day than it was then, except in certain articles, ticles there is no danger to health from the adulteration with glucose. Nevertheless adul- terations are practiced which, while harm less, are frauds, and it is proposed to do something to stop them. To this end bill has been prepared whose essential features are as follows State and National boards are contemplated. The duties of the National board shall be to deal with adulterated ar- ticles i'm ported from foreign countries or passing from one State to another. The board to employan analytical chemist in every port of entry, and one in every State to deter mine the presence and extent of adulteration. When an imported article shall be found to be adulterated to an extent bringing it within the meaning of the law, the importer shall have the option of shipping it back to the port from which it came or of destroying it. The State board shall have control of local boards charged with discovering adultera- tions, and have power to employ chemists and to bring charges in the courts The penalty for adulterating to be fine and i'm prisonment, varying with the character of the adulteration. AS the charges will be for misdemeanor-the fraud being directed as rule against the pocket of the consumer and not against his health-no moieties or other payments will be made to informers. The fines for the first offence will be made light. The prosecutions for adulterations of drugs are to be made especially severe as en- dangering the life of sick people.
 The need of some such act is very plain. Although there may not be much danger ous adulteration people have thought, there is altogether too much of it, as there is also of harmless" Adulteration. And it is not probable that either will decrease until both are made illegal and risky.