The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1902-12-30
FOR PURE FOOD
Secretary Brurer Maintains
That Congr SIS Should set
During the Summer Months Meats IN the Ra,-
eigh Market are Treated With Pc
serving Pcwdsrs."
.G;tor Paul Pierce says:

the last session. We must have a com
prehension, practical and effective law to
prevent the sale or manufacture Of i'm
pure or cdulterated food products. and
food inspection should be removed en-
tirely from politics. There are imita-
tons, frauds and deliberations every
where. Food articles are mixed IN with
substances that affect purity and lower
their quality and strength; inferior sub
stances are substituted for the genuine
article; valuable ingredients are extract
ed from the real products; true articles
are initiated and sold under another
name, and ingredients are added which
are poisonous or injurious 10 health.
THE press is today preaching the Cos
pol of pure food and federal surveillance
Of food products. 1t requires only q pass
ing familiarity with the situation 10 real
ie the inadeQuacy Of State laws TO pro
tcct the people, for they not only lack
harmony and coordination, but seldom
are enforced. Some of the men who are
appointed as food inspectors could not
detect an adulteration if they Were per
mitted to look at it through the most
powerful microscope, and even II they did
detect it, the possible political effect Of
the discovery would overshadow all con-
sideration Of public health.
"The extent to which human rascality
will go was revealed in the investigation
Of the milk supply in New York City
conducted by the Rockefeller Institute.
The Psychologists ound that the milk
was not only adulterated and polluted,
but actually traced 800 outbreaks Of cpl
demic diseases to impure milk.
Some months ago an analysis of the
milk furnished the patients Of a Chicago
hospital showed forrnalin in sufficient
Quantities to cause or at least hasten the
death Of sick persons. 1t seems that the
nurses and patients had complained of
the milk, and had declared upon occa-
sions that it tasted funny Formalin
is a chemical used in hospitals for fumi-
eating purposes because of its deadly
character. Because it will keep milk
from turning sour, however, milk deal
ers have been known to use it extensive
ly, especially in milk supplied to public
Institutions.
"a prominent grocer informs me that
it is impossible to sell genuine maple
syrup in many parts Of the country, for
the reason that it is so different from
that which the public has been educated
to believe. to be the pure article. More
Vermont maple sugar is manufactured in
Iowa in q season. than the maple trees of
Vermont could produce in years. But
that is mot all. There seems to be no
end to the list of ~aduiterated foods.
American tables are now supplied witt
butter. sWcetened or kept sweet by bora
cic acid and chemically colored; jam,
Jelly and preserves not even distantly &C
cuainted with the fruit are made wholly
Of gelatin, glucose, with chemical color
ing end flavor; tea is made by mixing
| Divide of iron with tea dust and rolled
by means of starch into pellets resembling
the genuine tea; chemical vinegar, catsup
and table sauces containing no vegetable
| matter whatever; pickles made green by
| a preparation Of copper; wines sweeten-
ed by glucose; beers rank with salicy-
lie acid; whiskies diluted with proof
spirits and arti1icially beaded with sui
phuric acid and smoothed with olive oil.
Filthy butter, absolutely unfit for use,
is collected in this city and shipped to
the woods, where it is remanufactured
and sent back TO Chicago and sold as pure
butter. Fermented and rotten tomatoes
are manufactured into catsup and sold
by leading houses as pure
'In his annual reports Secretary viii
son, CT the Department of Agriculture
has strongly urged Congress to pass q
comprehensive pure food law. The chem
istry forces of his department have work
ed in cooperation with the pure fooc
congress and other organizations, anc
! their analyses show that hundreds Of ar
! ticles Of daily use are adulterated, many
OF them II such a manner as to make
them highly injurious. The pure food com
missions Of several States are doing
, splendid work in educating the peopl
up to the fact that adulteration injure,
legitimate industries and fosters decep
, ton and fraud. But this work is in it
infancy, and the people must awaken t.
the great Importance Of the question an,
demand larger appropriations and NOR
efficient laws and publicity to success
fully prosecute a work Of such vast con
SEQUENCES.
Impure and adulterated foods leav
q trail Of human woe. We do no
realize the amount of disease that is du
to poisonous and indigestible substance
that are mixed in with the things we eat
Along this trail are sufferers from dys
pepsia, rheumatism, appendicitis, al
sorts Of liver and kidney diseases, i'm
pure blood, impure compilations and al
forms Of stomach and bowel complaints
1t is easy for the trained eye of q doc
tor to pick out the sufferers. It is ais
easy for him to pick out starved an
) poisoned well fed odies Men VIII
work with their minds often eat i'm
} proper food which does not feed tn
brain, but makes only fat and muscle
: and then they wonder why their ment5
faculties are sluggish. Others may hav
) some constitutional disease or weakness
and i~gEorantly devour from day to da
!, the food that aggravates it instead {
e adopting a diet that will assist natur
in restoring impaired functions and
building up wasted tissues.
The above extracts bring to mind SON
s Of the ~"doings" about our city marke
S 1t is a reasonably clean market, and he
a competent inspector who rigidly e1
g forces the ordinances pertaining to spoi
ed meat, the sale OF animals diving fro
n one cause Or another (which oro ocoe