Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1906-02-01
STATE HOUSE.
Bulletin Of State Board
Of Health.
January Number Is on Subject
Of Pure Food.
CORPORATION Business Of Month Brings
State $3I,280.
STATE HOUSE CALENDAR.
Next Meeting of Governor and Council,
Feb, %, at 10 A. M.

hoard of health, which has just been
l;ssued from the office of the secretary
of the board. is On the subject of pure
food. and is of special interest. 1t
will be remembered that at the last
meeting of the board committee was
chosen to consider what could be done
| to further the matter of protecting
the public against the adulteratiOn and
nisbranding of foods. drugs. etc. This
committee reported that a study of the
so-called Hepburn pure food bill now
be fore Congress shows that it has been
carefully drawn 50 as to meet all rea-
sonable objections which have been
made by business and scientific men
against similar bills which preceded
il in Congress, and in the opinion of
the committee it admirably meets the
situation.
Reference is made in the bulletin 10
the letter which has been sent out by
the board soliciting the cooperation
of other state and municipal boards of
health and of business men and organ
izations in securing the passage of the
above named bill. and which was
printed i'm full in Wednesday morn
ling's Journal. In addition to other in
teresting matter the bulletin also pub
fishes a list of food Stuffs which are
| subject to adulteration, and the vari-
Gus means which are employed in do
ing so. The list is as follows:
Spices and COndimcnts.-Thc adult
Grafton of ground spices is carried on
| on a large scale. Certain manufacture
ers grind what is known in the trade
las filters. peanut shells, cOcOanut
shells, buckwhcat bran, and various
other articles of various cOlOrS to be
sold to the grinders Of spices. Some
| of the spices contain but very little of
| the genuine ingredient. one sample
of what purported to be pepper was
shown to the Senate Committee by one
of the professors from the Connecticut
| Agricultural station. 1t consisted
principally of acids, charcoal. and
some starch. A sample of cayenne
pepper made by the same class of peO-
pie was compounded principally Of
| these filters with the addition of an
| acid and an anilinc dye. A sample of
| mustard contained twenty per cent. of
plaster of paris One of the chemists
from Wisconsin stated that they had
found that in ginger the ingenious
| adulterator had. ground up old tarred
rope junk to give his adulterated gin
ger the peculiar stringy appearance of
the ginger root when it is ground.
Jcllies and Preservcs.-One of the
manufacturers of jellies before the
| Senate Committee stated to the Com
mittec that they made two kinds of
jellies. one was jelly and the other
was Jelly" or commercial jelly. All
Of their various kinds of jellies We're
| made from the same material with
til" exception of cOlorinG matter and
| the difference i'm the reading Of the
label. The business of this firm was
confined to the jobbing trade When
| shipping To the State of Illinois, for
instance. and to other states where
| there are no pure food laws, he said
that Eve simply put "a label on there,
'currant jelly raspberry jelly etc"
The composition of this commercial
| jelly which served as the basis con-
sisted Of fifty per cent. glucose, ten
per cent. sugar. and forty per cent.
of a jelly made from apple parinSs
and apple cores. Other witnesses tcS-
titled that sulphuric acid or hydro
| chlOric acid was sometimes added to
this apple refuse to jellfy it. AS
Laboratory experience shows, some
pure fruit jellies." whether straw
berry. raspberry. orange. or grape, are
made up out of starch paste sWectcH-
cd with glucose favored artificially.
colored with aniline dyes. and pre-
served with salicylic acid. A slight
sprinkling of grass seed or other seeds
has served as an assurance that the
strawberry jelly" is genuine.
| FlavornS EAtracts-The report from
public health and experiment station
laboratories is that Il very usual way
of making up lemon extract, for in
| stance, is to put a few drops Of oil of
lemon. or none at all, into weak alco-
hol. flavor it with an oil from a ribbon
grass growing in the East Indies. and
color it with yellow aniline dye. A
few years ago. large manufacturer Of
extracts wrote to the North Dakota
Experiment Station that the price of
oil of lemon listed by one house ranged
| in price from As cents to $40 a pound
and even To $26 for turpcnless oil of
lemon. Similarly atrOcious ways have
been devised for the manufacture of
vanilla and other extracts whereby the
housewife is dcfrauded when she
spends her money for these things.
But there is another side to this bust
ness. 1t may fairly be said that these
persons who are putting out these
frauds are consciously dishonest. yet
some of them would Undoubtedly re-
frain from adding what they knew to
be positively detrimental to the health
of the public. But many of these put
teters in extracts know but little of the
action upon the human economy of the
ingredients which they use. The main
element of cost is alcohol. Wood alco-
hol is cheaper than grain alcohol. and
there has been an uncomfortable sus-
picion among intelligent users of these
preparations that some of these people
have been econOmizing by using this
cheaper and positively dangerous sub
stitute for ordinary alcohol. One case
of poisoning with ginger extract indi-
Gates this. Wood alcohol, even in
small doses. seriously endangers eve
sight and life.
Svrups and Molasses-Some grades of
molasses and much greater number
| r ,,JaS Of table SVrupS ora ba.