ADRIANI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1513-1579), Italian historian, was born of a patrician family of Florence, and was secretary to the republic of Florence. He was among the defenders of the city during the siege of 1530, but subsequently joined the Medici party and was appointed professor of rhetoric at the university. At the instance of Cosimo I. he wrote a history of his own times, from 1536 to 1574, in Italian, which is generally, but according to Brunet erroneously, considered a continuation of Guicciardini. De Thou acknowledges himself greatly indebted to this history, praising it especially for its accuracy. Adriani composed funeral orations in Latin on the emperor Charles V. and other noble personages, and was the author of a long letter on ancient painters and sculptors prefixed to the third volume of Vasari. His Istoria dei suoi tempi was published in Florence in 1583; a new edition appeared also in Florence in 1872. See G. M. Mazzucchelli, Gli Scrittori d' Italia, i. p. 151 (Brescia, 1753).
ADRIANOPLE, a vilayet of European Turkey, corresponding with part of the ancient Thrace, and bounded on the N. by Bulgaria (Eastern Rumeha), E. by the Black Sea and the vilayet of Constantinople, S. by the Sea of Marmora and the Aegean Sea and W. by Macedonia. Pop. (1905) about 1,000,000; area, 15,000 sq. m. The surface of the vilayet is generally mountainous, except in the central valley of the Maritza, and along the banks of its tributaries, the Tunja, Arda, Ergene, &c. On the west, the great Rhodope range and its outlying ridges extend as far as the Maritza, and attain an altitude of more than 7000 ft. in the summits of the Kushlar Dagh, Karluk Dagh and the Balkan. Towards the Black Sea, the less elevated Istranja Dagh stretches from north-west to south-east; and the entire south coast, which includes the promontory of Gallipoli and the western shore of the Dardanelles, is everywhere hilly or mountainous, except near the estuaries of the Maritza, and of the Mesta, a western frontier stream. The climate is mild and the soil fertile; but political disturbances and the conservative character of the people tend to thwart the progress of agriculture and other industries. The vilayet suffered severely during the Russian occupation of 1878, when, apart from the natural dislocation of commerce, many of the Moslem cultivators emigrated to Asia Minor, to be free from their alien rulers. Through the resultant scarcity of labour, much land fell out of cultivation. This was partially remedied after the Bulgarian annexation of Eastern Rumella, in 1885, had driven the Moslems of that country to emigrate in like manner to Adrianople; but the advantage was counterbalanced by the establishment of hostile Bulgarian tariffs. The important silk industry, however, began to revive about 1890, and dairy farming is prosperous; but the condition of the vilayet is far less unsettled than that of Macedonia, owing partly to the preponderance of Moslems among the peasantry, and partly to the nearness of Constantinople, with its Western influences. The main railway from Belgrade to Constantinople skirts the Maritza and Ergene valleys, and there is an important branch line down the Maritza valley to Dedeagatch, and thence coastwise to Salonica. After the city of Adrianople (pop. 1905, about 80,000), which is the capital, the principal towns are Rodosto (35,000), Gallipoli (25,000), Kirk-Kilisseh (16,000), Xanthi (14,000), Chorlu (11,500), Demotica (10,000), Enos (8000), Gumuljina (8000) and Dedeagatch (3000).
ADRIANOPLE (anc. Hadrianopolis; Turk. Edirne, or Edreneh; Slav. Odrin), the capital of the vilayet of Adrianople, Turkey in Europe; 137 m. by rail W.N.W. of Constantinople. Pop. (1905) about 80,000, of whom half are Turks, and half Jews, Greeks, Bulgars, Armenians, &c. Adrianople ranks, after Constantinople and Salonica, third in size and importance among the cities of European Turkey. It is the see of a Greek archbishop, and of one Armenian and two Bulgarian bishops. It is the chief fortress near the Bulgarian frontier, being defended by a ring of powerful modern forts. It occupies both banks of the river Tunja, at its confluence with the Maritza, which is navigable to this point in spring and winter. The nearest seaport by rail is Dedeagatch, west of the Maritza; Enos, at the river-mouth, is the nearest by water. Adrianople is on the railway from Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople and Salonica. In appearance it is thoroughly Oriental—a mass of mean, irregular wooden buildings, threaded by narrow tortuous streets, . with a few better buildings. Of these the most important are the Idadieh school, the school of arts and crafts, the Jewish communal school; the Greek college, Zappeion; the Imperial Ottoman Bank and Tobacco Regie; a fire-tower; a theatre; palaces for the prefect of the city, the administrative staff of the second army corps and the defence works commission; a handsome row of barracks; a military hospital; and a French hospital. Of earlier buildings, the most distinguished are the Eski Serai, an ancient and half-ruined palace of the sultans; the bazaar of Ali Pasha; and the 16th-century mosque of the sultan Selim II., a magnificent specimen of Turkish architecture. Adrianople has five suburbs, of which Kiretchhane and Yilderim are on the left bank of the Maritza, and Kirjikstands on a hill overlooking the city. The two last named are exclusively Greek, but a large proportion of the inhabitants of Kiretchhane are Bulgarian. These three suburbs—-as well as the little hamlet of Demirtash, containing about 300 houses all occupied by Bulgars—-are all built in the native fashion; but the fifth suburb, Karagatch, which is on the right bank of the Maritza, and occupies the region between the railway station and the city, is Western in its design, consisting of detached residences in gardens, many of them handsome villas, and all of modern European type. In all the communities schools have multiplied, but the new seminaries are of the old non-progressive type. The only exception is the Hamidieh school for boys—-a government institution which takes both boarders and day-scholars. Like the Lyceum of Galata Serai in Constantinople, it has two sets of professors, Turkish and French, and a full course of education in each language, the pupils following both courses. The several communities have each their own charitable institutions, the Jews being socially well endowed in this respect, The Greeks have a literary society, and there is a well-organized club to which members of all the native communities, as well as many foreigners, belong.
The economic condition of Adrianople was much impaired by the war of 1877-78, and was just showing signs of recovery when, in 1885, the severance from it of Eastern Rumelia by a Customs cordon rendered the situation more than ever. Adrianople had previously been the commercial headquarters of all Thrace, and of a large portion of the region between the Balkans and the Danube, now Bulgaria. But the separation of Eastern Rumeha isolated Adrianople, and transferred to Philippopolis at least two-thirds of its foreign trade which, as regards sea-borne merchandise, is carried on through the port of Burgas (q.v.). The city manufactures silk, leather, tapestry, woollens, linen and cotton, and has an active general trade. Besides fruits and agricultural produce, its exports include raw silk, cotton, opium, rose-water, attar of roses, wax and the dye known as Turkey red. The surrounding country is extremely fertile, and its wines are the best produced in Turkey. The city is supplied with fresh water by means of an aqueduct carried by arches over an extensive valley. There is also a fine stone bridge over the Tunja.
Adrianople was originally known as Uskadama, Uskudama or Uskodama, but was renamed and enlarged by the Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138). In 378 the Romans were here defeated by the Goths. Adrianople was the residence of the Turkish sultans from 1361, when it was captured by Murad I., until 1453, when Constantinople fell. It was occupied by the Russians in 1829 and 1878 (see RUSSO-TURKISH WARS).
ADRIATIC SEA (ancient Adria or Hadria), an arm of the Mediterranean Sea separating Italy from the Austro-Hungarian, Montenegrin and Albanian littorals, and the system of the Apennine mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges. The name, derived from the town of Adria, belonged originally only to the upper portion of the sea (Herodotus vi. 127, vii. 20, ix. 92; Euripides, Hippolytus, 736), but was gradually extended as the Syracusan colonies gained in importance. But even then the Adriatic in the narrower sense only extended as far as the Mons Garganus, the outer portion being called the Ionian Sea: the name was sometimes, however, inaccurately used to include the Gulf of Tarentum, the Sea of Sicily, the Gulf of Corinth and even the sea between Crete and Malta (Acts xxvii. 27). The Adriatic extends N.W. from 40 deg. to 45 deg. 45' N., with an extreme length of nearly 500 m., and a mean breadth of about 110 m., but the Strait of Otranto, through which it connects at the south with the Ionian Sea, is only 45 m. wide. Moreover, the chain of islands which fringes the northern part of the eastern shore reduces the extreme breadth of open sea in this part to 90 m. The Italian shore is generally low, merging, in the north-west, into the marshes and lagoons on either hand of the protruding delta of the river Po, the sediment of which has pushed forward the coast-line for several miles within historic times. On islands within one of the lagoons opening from the Gulf of Venice, the city of that name has its unique situation. The east coast is generally bold and rocky. South of the Istrian peninsula, which separates the Gulfs of Venice and Trieste from the Strait of Quarnero, the island-fringe of the east coast extends as far south as Ragusa. The islands, which are long and narrow (the long axis lying parallel with the coast of the mainland), rise rather abruptly to elevations of a few hundred feet, while on the mainland, notably in the magnificent inlet of the Bocche di Cattaro, lofty mountains often fall directly to the sea. This coast, though beautiful, is somewhat sombre, the prevalent colour of the rocks, a light, dead grey, contrasting harshly with the dark vegetation, which on some of the islands is luxuriant. The north part of the sea is very shallow, and between the southern promontory of Istria and Rimini the depth rarely exceeds 25 fathoms. Between Sebenico and Ortona a well-marked depression occurs, a considerable area of which exceeds 100 fathoms in depth. From a point between Curzola and the north shore of the spur of Monte Gargano there is a ridge giving shallower water, and a broken chain of a few islets extends across the sea. The deepest part of the sea lies east of Monte Gargano, south of Ragusa, and west of Durazzo, where a large basin gives depths of 500 fathoms and upwards, and a small area in the south of this basin falls below 800. The mean depth of the sea is estimated at 133 fathoms. The bora (north-east wind), and the prevalence of sudden squalls from this quarter or the south-east, are dangers to navigation in winter. Tidal movement is slight. (See also MEDITERRANEAN.) For the ``Marriage of the Adriatic,'' or more properly ``of the sea,'' a ceremony formerly performed by the doges of Venice, see the article BUCENTAUR.
ADSCRIPT (from Lat. ad, on or to, and scribere, to write), something written ajier, as opposed to ``subscript,'' which means written under. A labourer was called an ``adscript of the soil'' (adscriptus glebae) when he could be sold or transferred with it, as in feudal days, and as in Russia until 1861. Carlyle speaks of the Java blacks as a kind of adscripts.
ADULLAM, a Canaanitish town in the territory of the tribe of Judah, perhaps the modern Aid-el-Ma, 7 m. N.E. of Beit-Jibrin. It was in the stronghold (``cave'' is a scribal error) of this town that David took refuge on two occasions (1 Sam. xxii. 1; 2 Sam. v. 17). The tradition that Adullam is in the great cave of Rhareitun (St Chariton) is probably due to the crusaders. From the description of Adullam as the resort of ``every one that was in distress,'' or ``in debt,'' or ``discontented,'' it has often been humorously alluded to, notably by Sir Walter Scott, who puts the expression into the mouth of the Baron of Bradwardine in Waverley, chap. lvii., and also of Balfour of Burley in Old Mortality. In modern political history the expression ``cave of Adullam'' (hence ``Adullamites'') came into common use (being first employed in a speech by John Bright on the 13th of March 1866) with regard to the independent attitude of Robert Howe (Lord Sherbrooke), Edward Horsman and their Liberal supporters in opposition to the Reform Bill of 1866. But others had previously used it in a similar connexion, e.g. President Lincoln in his second electoral campaign (1864), and the Tories in allusion to the Whig remnant who joined C. J. Fox in his temporary secession. From the same usage is derived the shorter political term ``cave'' for any body of men who secede from their party on some special subject.
ADULTERATION (from Lat. adulterare, to defile or falsify), the act of debasing a commercial commodity with the object of passing it off as or under the name of a pure or genuine commodity for illegitimate profit, or the substitution of an inferior article for a superior one, to the detriment of the purchaser. Although the term is mainly used in connexion with the falsification of articles of food, drink or drugs, and is so dealt with in this article, the practice of adulteration extends to almost all manufactured products and even to unmanufactured natural substances, and (as was once suggested by (John Bright) is an almost inseparable —though none the less reprehensible—-phase of keen trade competition. In its crudest forms as old as commerce itself, it has progressed with the growth of knowledge and of science, and is, in its most modern developments, almost a branch—and that not the least vigorous one—-of applied science. From the mere concealment of a piece of metal or a stone in a loaf of bread or in a lump of butter, a bullet in a musk baa or in a piece of opium, it has developed into the use of aniline dyes, of antiseptic chemicals, of synthetic sweetening agents in foods, the manufacture of butter from cocoa-nuts, of lard from cotton-seed and of pepper from olive stones. Its growth and development has necessitated the employment of multitudes of scientific officers charged with its detection and the passing of numerous laws for its repression and punishment. While for all common forms of fraud the common law is in most cases considered strong enough, special laws against the adulteration of food have been found necessary in all civilized countries. A vigorous branch of chemical literature deals with it; there exist scientific societies specially devoted to its study; laboratories are maintained by governments with staffs of highly trained chemists for its detection; and yet it not only develops and flourishes, but becomes more general, if less virulent and dangerous to health. There are numerous references to adulteration in the classics. The detection of the base metal by Archimedes in Hiero's crown, by the light specific gravity of the latter, is a well-known instance. Vitruvius speaks of the adulteration of minium with lime, Dioscorides of that of opium with other plant juices and with gum, Pliny of that of flour with white clay. Both in Rome and in Athens wine was often adulterated with colours and flavouring agents, and inspectors were charged with looking after it. In England, so far hack as the reign of John (1203), a proclamation was made throughout the kingdom, enforcing the legal obligations of assize as regards bread; and in the following reign the statute (51 Hen. III. Stat. 6) entitled ``the pillory and tumbrel'' was framed for the express purpose of protecting the public from the dishonest dealings of bakers, vintners, brewers, butchers and others. This statute is the first in which the adulteration of human food is specially noticed and prohibited; it seems to have been enforced with more or less rigour until the time of Anne, when it was repealed (1709). According to the hiber Albus it was strictly observed in the days of Edward I., for it states that: ``If any default shall be found in the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house through the great street where there be most people assembled, and through the great streets which are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck; if a second time he shall be found committing the same offence, let him be drawn from the Guildhall through the great street of Cheepe in the manner aforesaid to the pillory, and let him be put upon the pillory, and remain there at least one hour in the day; and the third time that such default shall be found, he shall be drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and the baker made to foreswear the trade in the city for ever.'' The assize of 1634 provides that ``if there be any manner of person or persons, which shall by any false wayes or meanes, sell any meale under the kinge's subjects, either by mixing it deceitfully or sell any musty or corrupted meal, which may be to the hurte and infection of man's body, or use any false weight, or any deceitful wayes or meanes, and so deceive the subject, for the first offence he shall be grievously punished, the second he shall loose his meale, for the third offence he shall suffer the judgment of the pillory and the fourth time he shall foreswore the town wherein he dwelleth.'' Vintners, spicers, grocers, butchers, regrators and others were subject to the like punishment for dishonesty in their commercial dealings—it being thought that the pillory, by appealing to the sense of shame, was far more deterrent of such crimes than fine or imprisonment. In the reign of Edward the Confessor a knavish brewer of the city of Chester was taken round the town in the cart in which the refuse of the privies had been collected. Ale-tasters had to look after the ale and test it by spilling some on to a wooden seat, sitting on the wet place in their leathern breeches, the stickiness of the ``residue obtained by evaporation'' affording the evidence of purity or otherwise. If sugar had been added the taster adhered to the bench; pure malt beer was not considered to yield an adhesive extract. In 1553, the lord mayor of London ordered a jury of five or six vintners to rack and draw off the suspected wine of another vintner, and to ascertain what drugs or ingredients they found in the said wine or cask to sophisticate the same. At another time eight pipes of wine were ordered to be destroyed because, on racking off, bundles of weeds, pieces of sulphur match, and ``a kind of gravel mixture sticking to the casks'' had been found.
Similar records have come down from the continental European countries. In 1390 an Augsburg wine-seller was sentenced to be led out of the city with his hands bound and a rope round his neck; in 1400 two others were branded and otherwise severely punished; in 1435 ``were the taverner Christian Corper and his wife put in a cask in which he sold false wine, and then exposed in the pillory. The punishment was adjudged because they had roasted pears and put them into new sour wine, in order to sweeten the wine. Some pears were hung round their necks like unto a Paternoster.'' In Biebrich on the Rhine, in 1482, a wine-falsifier was condemned to drink six quarts of his own wine; from this he died. In Frankfurt, casks in which false wine had been found were placed with a red flag on the knacker's cart, ``the jailer marched before, the rabble after; and when they came to the river they broke the casks and tumbled the stuff into the stream.'' In France successive ordonnances from 1330 to 1672 forbade the mixing of two wines together under the penalty of a fine and the confiscation of the wine.
Modern British Legislation.—In modern times the English parliament has dealt frequently with the subject of food adulteration. In 1725 it was provided that ``no dealer in tea or manufacturer or dyer thereof, or pretending so to be, shall counterfeit or adulterate tea, or cause or procure the same to be counterfeited or adulterated, or shall alter, fabricate or manufacture tea with terra-japonica, or with any drug or drugs whatsoever; nor shall mix or cause or procure to be mixed with tea any leaves other than the leaves of tea or other ingredients whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting and losing the tea so counterfeited, adulterated, altered, fabricated, manufactured or mixed, and any other thing or things whatsoever added thereto, or mixed or used therewith, and also the sum of L. 100.'' Six years afterwards, in 1730-173i, a further act was passed prescribing a penalty for ``sophisticating'' tea; it recites that several iii-disposed persons do frequently dye, fabricate or manufacture very great quantities of sloe leaves, liquorice leaves, and the leaves of tea that have been before used, or the leaves of other trees, shrubs or plants in imitation of tea, and do likewise mix, colour, stain and dye such leaves and likewise tea with terra-japonica, sugar, molasses, clay, logwood, and with other ingredients, and do sell and vend the same as true and real tea, to the prejudice of the health of his majesty's subjects, the diminution of the revenue and to the ruin of the fair trader. This act provides that for every pound of adulterated tea found in possession of any person, a sum of L. 10 shall be forfeited. It was followed by one passed in 1768-1767, which increased the penalty to imprisonment for not less than six nor more than twelve months. As regards coffee, an act of 1718 recited that ``divers evil-disposed persons have at the time or soon after the roasting of coffee made use of water, grease, butter or such-like materials, whereby the same is rendered unwholesome and greatly increased in weight,'' and a penalty of L. 20 is enacted. In 1803 an act refers to the addition of burnt, scorched or roasted peas, beans or other grains or vegetable substances prepared in imitation of coffee or cocoa, to coffee or cocoa, and fixes the penalty for the offence at L. 100, but subsequently permission was given to coffee or cocoa dealers also to deal in scorched or roasted corn, peas, beans or parsnips whole and not ground, crushed or powdered, under certain excise restrictions. An act passed in 1816 relating to beer and porter provides that no brewer of or dealer in or retailer of beer ``shall receive or have in his possession, or make or mix with any worts or beer, any liquor, extract or other preparation for the purpose of darkening the colour of worts or beer, other than brown malt, ground or unground, or shall have in his possession or use, or mix with any worts or beer any molasses, honey, liquorice, vitriol, quassia, coculus-indiae, grains of paradise, guinea-pepper or opium, or any extracts of these, or any articles or preparation whatsoever for or as a substitute for malt or hops.'' Any person contravening was liable to a penalty of L. 200, and any druggist selling to any brewer or retail dealer any colouring or malt substitute was to be fined L. 500. It was only in 1847 that brewers were allowed to make for their own use, from sugar, a liquor for darkening the colour of worts or beer and to use it in brewing.
All the laws hitherto referred to were mainly passed in the interest of the inland revenue, and their execution was left entirely in the hands of the revenue officers. It was but natural that they should look primarily after the dutiable articles and not after those that brought no revenue to the state. About the middle of the 19th century many articles, however, paid import duty; butter, for instance, paid 5s. per hundredweight; cheese from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d.; flour or meal of all kinds, 4 1/2d.; ginger, 10s.; isinglass, 5s.; and so on. Sensational and doubtless largely exaggerated statements were from time to time published concerning the food supply of the nation. F. C. Accum (1769-1838) by his Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons (1820), and particularly an anonymous writer of a book entitled Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning unmasked, or Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle, in which the blood empoisoning and life-destroying adulterations of wines, spirits, beer, bread, flour, tea, sugar, spices, cheesemongery, pastry, confectionery, medicines, etc., etc., are laid open to the public (1830), roused the public attention. In 1850 a physician, Dr. Arthur H. Hassall, had the happy idea of looking at ground coffee through the microscope. Eminent chemists had previously found great difficulty in establishing any satisfactory chemical distinction between coffee, chicory and other adulterants of coffee; the microscope immediately showed the structural difference of the particles, however small. The results of Hassall's examinations were embodied in a paper which was read before the Botanical Society of London and was reported in The Times, 1850. A paper on the microscopic examination of sugar, showing the presence in that article of innumerable living mites, followed and attracted much attention. Hassall was in consequence commissioned by Thomas Wakley (1795—1862), the owner of the Lancet, to extend his examination to other articles of food, and for a period of nearly four years reports of the Lancet Analytical Sanitary Commission were regularly published, the names and addresses of hundreds of manufacturers and tradesmen selling adulterated articles being fearlessly given. The responsibility incurred was immense, but the assertions of the journal were so well founded upon fact that they were universally accepted as accurately representing the appalling state of the food supply. As instances may be cited, that of thirty-four samples of coffee only three were pure, chicory being present in thirty-one, roasted corn in twelve, beans and potato flour each in one; of thirty-four samples of chicory, fourteen were adulterated with corn, beans or acorns; of forty-nine samples of bread, every one contained alum; of fifty-six samples of cocoa, only eight were pure; of twenty-six milks, fourteen were adulterated; of twenty-eight cayenne peppers, only four were genuine, thirteen containing red-lead and one vermilion; of upwards of one hundred samples of coloured sugar-confectionery, fifty-nine contained chromate of lead, eleven gamboge, twelve red-lead, six vermilion, nine arsenite of copper and four white-lead.
In consequence of the Lancet's disclosures a parliamentary committee was appointed in 1855, the labours of which resulted in 1860 in the Adulteration of Food and Drink Act, the first act that dealt generally with the adulteration of food. The first section of this enacted ``that every person who shall sell any article of food or drink with which, to the knowledge of such person, any ingredient or material injurious to the health of persons eating or drinking such article has been mixed, and every person who shall sell as pure or unadulterated any article of food or drink which is adulterated and not pure, shall for every such offence, on summary conviction, pay a penalty not exceeding L. 5 with costs.'' In the case of a second offence the name, place of abode and offence might be published in the newspapers at the offender's expense.
1872.
As the act, however, left it optional to the district authorities to appoint analysts or not, and did not provide for the appointment of any officer upon whom should rest the duty of obtaining samples or of prosecuting offenders, it virtually remained a dead letter till 1872, when the Adulteration of Food and Drugs Act came into force, prescribing a penalty not exceeding L. 50 for the sale of injurious food and, for a second offence, imprisonment for six months with hard labour. Inspectors were empowered to make purchases of samples to be submitted for analysis, but appointment of analysts was still left optional. The definition of an adulterated article given in that act was essentially that still accepted at the present time, namely, ``any article of food or drink or any drug mixed with any other substances, with intent fraudulently to increase its weight or bulk, without declaration of such admixture to any purchaser thereof before delivering the same.'' The adoption of the act was sporadic, and, outside London and a few large towns, the number of proceedings against offenders remained exceedingly small. Nevertheless complaints soon arose that it inflicted considerable injury and imposed heavy and undeserved penalties upon some respectable tradesmen, mainly owing to the ``want of a clear understanding of what does and does not constitute adulteration,'' and in some cases to conflicting decisions and the inexperience of analysts.
Again a parliamentary committee was appointed which took a mass of evidence, the outcome of its inquiries being the Sale Of Food and Drugs Act 1875, which is in force at the present day, subject to amendments and additions made at later dates. This act avoided the term ``adulteration'' altogether and endeavoured to give a clearer description of punishable offences:—Section 6. ``No person shall sell to the purchaser any article of food or any drug which is not of the nature, substance and quality of the article demanded by the purchaser under a penalty not exceeding L. 20; provided that an offence shall not be deemed to be committed under this section in the following cases: (1) where any matter or ingredient not injurious to health has been added to the food or drug because the same is required for the production or preparation thereof as an article of commerce, in a state fit for carriage or consumption, and not fraudulently to increase the bulk, weight or measure of the food or drug, or conceal the inferior quality thereof; (2) where the food or drug is a proprietary medicine, or is the subject of a patent in force and is supplied in the state required by the specification of the patent; (3) where the food or drug is compounded as in the act mentioned; (4) where the food or drug is unavoidably mixed with some extraneous matter in the process of collection or preparation.''
1879.
Difficulties of administration.
A curious condition of things arose out of the definition of ``food'' given in the act of 1875: ``The term food shall include every article used for food or drink by man, other than drugs or water.'' It had been the practice of bakers to add alum to the flour from which bread was manufactured, in order to whiten the bread, and to permit the use of damaged and discoloured flour. This practice had been strongly condemned by chemists and physicians, because it rendered the bread indigestible and injurious to health. Shortly after the passing of the Food Act this objectionable practice was stamped out by numerous prosecutions, and alumed bread now no longer occurs. A large trade, however, continued to be carried on in baking powders consisting of alum and sodium bicarbonate. It was naturally thought that, as baking powder is sold with the obvious intention that it may enter into food, the vendors could also be proceeded against. The high court, however, held that, baking powder in itself not being an article of food, its sale could not be an offence under the Food Act. This anomaly was removed by a later act. Under section 6 of the act of 1875 a defendant could be convicted, even if he had no guilty knowledge of the fact that the article he had sold was adulterated. In the repealed Adulteration Act of 1872 the words ``to the knowledge of'' were inserted, and they were found fatal to obtaining convictions. The general rule of the law is that the master is not criminally responsible for the acts of his servants if they are done without his knowledge or authority, but under the Food Act it was held (Brown v. Foot, 1892, 66 L.T. 649) that a master was liable for the watering of milk by one of his servants, although he had published a warning to them that they would be dismissed if found doing so. Milk might be adulterated during transit on the railway without the knowledge of the owner or receiver, and yet the vendor was liable to conviction.
When it is brought to the knowledge of a purchaser that the article sold to him is not of the nature, substance or quality he demanded, the sale is not to the prejudice of the purchaser. The notice may be given verbally or by a label supplied with the article. A common law notice may also be given. In Sandys v. Small, 1878, 3 Q.B.D. 449, a publican had displayed a placard within the inn to the effect that the spirits sold in his establishment were watered. This was held, as it were, to contract him out of the Food Act. Similarly, in the case of butters that had been adulterated with milk, the vendors, by giving a general notice in the shop, evaded punishment under the act. A notice, is, however, of no avail if given under section 8 of the act, if the admixture has been made for fraudulent purposes. In Liddiart v. Reece, 44 J.P. 233, 1880, an inspector asked for coffee and received a packet with a label describing it as a mixture of coffee and chicory. It was sold at the price of coffee. It turned out to be a mixture containing 40% of chicory. The high court held that this was an excessive quantity, and was added for the purpose of fraudulently increasing the bulk or weight. In another case, however (Otter v. Edgley, 1893, 57 J.P. 457), where an inspector had asked for French coffee and had been supplied with a mixture containing 60% of chicory, the article being labelled as a mixture, the high court held that there was no evidence of fraud, and, in the case of cocoa, a mixture containing as little as 30% of cocoa and 70% of starch and sugar, the label stating it to be a mixture, was held to have been legally sold (Jones v. Jones, 1894, 58 J.P. 653). In this case the label notifying the admixture was hidden by a sheet of opaque white paper, nor had the purchaser's attention been called to it, but the price of the article was much lower than that of pure cocoa. It is seen from these few instances, taken at random out of scores, that this clause of the act was far from clear and was very variously interpreted at the courts. The warranty clause (clause 25) also gave rise to an immense amount of litigation. In the earlier high court decisions a very narrow interpretation was given to the term ``written warranty,'' but in later years a wider view prevailed. A general contract to supply a pure article is not a sufficient warranty unless with every delivery there is something to identify the delivery as part of the contract. An invoice containing merely a description of an article as ``lard'' or ``pepper'' is not a warranty; but if there be added the words ``guaranteed pure'' it is a sufficient warranty. A label upon an article is not in itself a warranty, but a label bearing the words ``pure'' or ``unadulterated,'' coupled with an invoice which could be identified with the label, together were held to form an effective warranty.
As many thousands of samples were annually submitted by inspectors under the act to the analysts who had been appointed in 237 boroughs and districts, a very large number of cases led to disputes of law or fact, about seventy high court cases being decided within eighteen years of the passing of the act. While these cases related to a variety of different articles and conditions, dairy produce, namely milk and butter, led to the greatest amount of litigation. It may seem to be a simple matter to ascertain whether a vendor of milk supplies his customer with milk of the ``nature, substance and quality demanded,'' but milk is subject to great variations in composition owing to a large number of circumstances which will be considered below.
Margerine Act.
Not many years after the passing of the Food Act of 1875 the sale of butter substitutes assumed very large proportions, and so seriously prejudiced dairy-farmers that, as regards these, an act was passed which was not exactly an amendment of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, although it embodied a good many provisions of that act. It was called the Margarine Act 1887. It provided that every package of articles made in imitation of butter should be labelled ``margarine'' in letters 1 1/2 inches square. The vendor, however, was protected if he could show a warranty or invoice, whereas in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act he was not protected by invoice merely. Inspectors might take samples of ``any butter or substitute purporting to be butter'' without going through the form of purchase. The maximum penalty was raised from L. 20 as provided by the Food Act, to L. 50 in the case of a first and to L. 100 in the case of repeated conviction. The Margarine Act is the first statute that makes reference to and sanctions the use of preservatives, concerning which a good deal will have to be said farther on.
Select committee, 1894.
In the course of twenty years of administration of the Food Acts so many difficulties had arisen in reference to the various points referred to, that in 1894 a select committee was appointed to inquire into the working of the various acts and to report whether any, and if so what, amendments were desirable. During three sessions the committee sat and took voluminous evidence. They reported that where the acts had been well administered they had been most beneficial in diminishing adulteration offences. Forms of adulteration which were common prior to the passing of the 1875 act, such as the introouction of alum into bread and the colouring of confectionery with poisonous material, had almost entirely disappeared. A close connexion had been shown to exist between the extent of adulteration and the number of articles submitted for analysis under the acts, the proportion of adulterated samples being found to diminish as the number of samples taken relatively to the population increased. Thus, in 1890, in Somersetshire one sample had been analysed for every 379 persons, the percentage of adulterated samples in those taken for analysis being as low as 3.6; in Gloucestershire one to 770 persons with 6.2 of adulteration; in Bedfordshire one to 821 with 7.1; in Derbyshire one to 3164 with 17.1%, and in Oxford one sample to 14,963 inhabitants with no less than 41.7% of adulterated samples. The number of samples of articles annually submitted to analysis, according to the returns obtained by the Local Government Board, steadily increased from the commencement onward. Whereas in 1877, 14,706 samples, and in 1883, 19,648 samples were analysed, in 1904-1905 the number was no less than 84,678, or an average of one sample to 384 inhabitants for the whole country. In the five years 1877—1881 the proportion found adulterated was 16.2%; in the following five years ending with 1886, the percentage was 13.9; in the five years ending 1891, the percentage was 11.7; and in the year 1904 the percentage was only 8.5. The select committee found that wide local differences in the administration of the acts existed, and that in many parts of the country the local authorities had failed to exercise their powers. In one metropolitan district, eight members of the local authority had been convicted of offences under the acts, upon evidence obtained by their own inspector. The result was that the duties of the inspector of the acts were afterwards controlled by a committee of that local authority, who decided the cases in which prosecutions should be.undertaken, and the administration of the acts was ``little better than a farce.'' No power existed to compel local authorities to carry out the acts. The committee came to the conclusion that in many cases the responsibility for the adulteration of articles of food did not rest with the retailer but with the wholesale dealer or manufacturer; that the law punished petty offences and left great ones untouched; that it fined a small retailer and left the wholesale offender scot free. As regards warranty, they thought that the precedent created by the Margarine Act should be followed generally, and that invoices and equivalent documents should have the force of warranties. They found that a considerable proportion of the food imports were adulterated, out of 890 samples of butter taken by the customs in 1895 no less than 106 being impure, and they recommended that in addition to tea, which by section 30 of the act of 1875 was to be systematically analysed by the customs, prior to being passed for distribution, samples of all food imports should be taken and examined by the customs. The committee further found that the penalties imposed under the acts had for the most part been trifling and quite insufficient to serve as deterrents, the profits derived from the sale of adulterated articles being out of proportion great to the insignificant fines imposed, and they recommended that for the second offence the penalty of L. 5 should be the minimum one, and that in respect to third or subsequent offences imprisonment without the option of a fine might be inflicted. The important question of food standards was considered at great length. The absence of legal standards or definitions of articles of food had occasioned great difficulty in numerous cases, but as no authority was provided by the existing acts that might fix such standards, they recommended the formation of a scientific authority or court of reference composed of representatives of the laboratory of the Inland Revenue, of the Local Government Board, the Board of Agriculture, the General Medical Council, the Institute of Chemistry, the Pharmaceutical Society, of other scientific men and of the trading and manufacturing community, who should have the duty of fixing standards of quality and purity of food to be confirmed by a secretary of state.
The committee's deliberations and recommendations resulted in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1899. This unfortunately was not a comprehensive act superseding the previous acts, but was an additional and amending one, so that at the present time four food acts run parallel and are together in force, rendering the subject from a legal point of view one of extreme complexity. In this act the growing influence of the Board of Agriculture and the desire to assist farmers and dairymen more decisively than previously are clearly apparent. Section 1 empowers the customs to take samples of consignments of imported articles of food and enjoins them to communicate to the Board of Agriculture the names of the importers of adulterated goods, any article of food to be considered adulterated or impoverished if it has been mixed with any other substance (other than preservative or colouring matter, of such a nature and such a quantity as not to render the article injurious to health), or if any part of it has been abstracted to the detriment of the article. Margarine or cheese containing margarine has to be conspicuously marked as such; condensed, separated or skim milk has to be clearly labelled ``machine-skimmed milk'' or ``skimmed milk,'' as the case may be. The next sections give to the Local Government Board and the Board of Agriculture a roving commission to see that the acts are properly enforced throughout the kingdom so as to apply the acts more equally throughout the country than heretofore, and in default of local authorities carrying out their duties empower the government departments mentioned to execute and enforce the acts at the expense of the local authorities. The importance of a regular and conscientious control of the public food supply by the local authorities was thus for the first time, after forty years of experimental legislation, fully acknowledged. In recognition of the great difficulties experienced for many years by analysts in their endeavour to fix minimum percentages for the fat and other milk constituents, and their inability to do so without statutory powers, the Board of Agriculture is authorized by section 4 to make regulations ``for determining what deficiency in any of the normal constituents of genuine milk, cream, butter or cheese, or what addition of extraneous matter or proportion of water'' in any of these materials shall raise a presumption, until the contrary is proved, that these articles are not genuine. In pursuance of these powers the Board of Agriculture did in 1901 issue their milk regulations, adopting officially the minima agreed upon by public analysts, and in 1902 the sale of butter regulations, which fixed 16% as the maximum of water that might be contained in butter. It is important to note that the fact of a sample of milk falling short of the standard is not conclusive evidence of adulteration, but it justifies the institution of proceedings and casts the onus of proving that the sample is genuine upon the defendant. The Margarine Act of 1887 was extended to margarine cheese, the obligatory labelling of margarine packages was more precisely regulated, margarine manufacturers and dealers in that article were compelled to keep a register open to inspection by the Board of Agriculture, showing the quantity and designation of each consignment, and power was given to officers of the board to enter at all reasonable times manufactories of margarine and margarine cheese. The amount of butter-fat that might be present in margarine was limited to 10%, while under the Margarine Act of 1887 an unlimited admixture might have been made, provided that the mixture, no matter how large the percentage of butter, was sold as margarine. As is further explained below, the difficulty of distinguishing without chemical aid between pure butter and margarine containing a considerable percentage of butter is very great, and fraudulent sales continued to be common after the passing of the Margarine Act. The labelling section of the Food Act 1875 (sec. 8), which had been systematically circumvented, was modified, a label being no longer recognized as distinctly and legibly written or printed, unless it is so written or printed that the notice of mixture given by the label is not obscured by other matter on the label, though labels that had been continuously in use for at least seven years before the commencement of the act were not interfered with. In consequence of the admitted unfairness of asking for a portion of the contents of a properly labelled tin or package and then instituting proceedings because no declaration of admixture had been made, it was enacted that no person shall be required to sell any article exposed for sale in an unopened tin or packet, except in the unopened tin or packet in which it is contained. This removed a grievance which had long been felt both by retailers and manufacturers, and is a provision of growing importance with the continually increasing sale of articles put up in factories. The warranty provisions, which, as before stated, had given rise to much litigation, were more clearly defined. A notice that a defendant would rely for his defence upon a warranty had to be given within seven days of the service of the summons or the defence would not be available, and the warrantor was empowered to appear at the hearing and to give evidence so that no man's name could, as sometimes previously happened, be dragged into a case without due notice to him. A warranty or invoice given by a person resident outside the United Kingdom was no longer recognized as a defence, unless the defendant could prove that he had taken reasonable steps to ascertain and did in fact believe in the accuracy of the statement contained in the warranty. This prevented collusion between a foreign shipper and an importer; and, lastly, the definition of ``food'' was widened (in view of the baking-powder decision) so that the term food ``shall include every article used for food or drink by man, other than drugs or water, and any article which ordinarily enters into or is used in the composition or preparation of human food, and shall also include flavoring matters and condiments.''
The act of 1899 embodies, with one exception, the most important recommendations of the Food Products Committee, the exception being the omission of instituting a board of reference that might deal with difficulties as they arose, guide analysts and public authorities in fixing limits for articles other than milk and butter, and take up the important questions of preservatives and colouring matters and such like. An occurrence which almost immediately followed the passing of the act showed in the strongest manner the necessity of such guiding board—namely, the outbreak of arsenical poisoning in the Midlands in the latter part of 1900.
Arsenic in foods.
In the month of June 1900 there occurred, mainly in the Midlands but also in other parts of England and Wales, an outbreak of an illness variously described as ``alcoholism,'' ``peripheral neuritis'' or ``multiple neuritis.'' This affected about 6000 persons and resulted in about 70 deaths. It was soon ascertained that the sufferers were all beer drinkers, and several of them were employees of a local brewery, the majority of whom had suffered for some months past. Although suspicion fell early upon beer, some considerable time elapsed before Dr E. S. Reynolds of Manchester discovered arsenic in dangerous proportions in the beer. Steps were immediately taken by brewers and sanitary authorities to ensure that this arsenical beer was withdrawn from sale, and, as a result, the epidemic came speedily to an end. In all instances where this epidemic of sickness had been traced to particular breweries, the latter had been users of brewing sugars-glucose and invert sugar—supplied by a single firm. The quantity of arsenic detected in specimens of these brewing sugars was in some cases very large, amounting to upward of four grains per pound. The implicated brewing sugars were found to have become contaminated by arsenic in course of their manufacture through the use of sulphuric acid, some specimens of which contained as much as 2.6% of arsenic. The acid had been made from highly arsenical iron pyrites, and as the manufacturers of the glucose had not specifically contracted with the acid makers for pure acid, the latter, not knowing for what purpose the acid was to be used, had felt themselves justified in supplying impure acid. A royal commission was appointed in February 1901, with Lord Kelvin as chairman, to inquire into the matter, and an enormous amount of attention was naturally given to it by chemists and medical men. It was soon found that arsenic was very widely disseminated in two classes of food materials, namely, such as had been dried or roasted in gases resulting from the combustion of coal, and such as had been more or less chemically manufactured. All coal contains iron pyrites, and this mineral again is contaminated with arsenic.
When the coal is burned the fumes are arsenical and part of the arsenic condenses and deposits. Malt dried in English malt kilns was found to be almost invariably arsenical, and there cannot be a doubt that English beers had for many years past been thus contaminated. At the present time coal virtually free from arsenic is selected for malting, or Newlands' process, consisting of the admixture with coal of lime which renders the arsenic non-volatile, is adopted, and malt free from all but the merest traces of arsenic is manufactured. Part of the arsenic remains in the coalashes and wherever these deposit arsenic can be traced. Sir Edward Frankland had, many years previously, detected arsenic in the London atmosphere. Chicory roasted with coal, steaks and chops grilled over an open fire, thus obtain a minute arsenical dosing. In sugar refineries carbonic acid gas is, at one stage of the process, passed through the liquor for the purpose of precipitating lime or strontia. When this carbonic acid is derived from coal the sugar often shows traces of arsenic. When arsenical malt or sugar infusion is fermented, as in brewing, the yeast precipitates upon itself a considerable proportion of the impurity, thus partly cleaning the beer, but all preparations made from yeast-extracts resemble to some extent meat extracts, with which they are sometimes fraudulently mixed—-are thus exposed to arsenical contamination. On the continent of Europe malt is not dried in kilns with direct access of combustion gases but on floors heated from beneath, and continental beers therefore have not been found arsenical. The second class of causes of contamination consists of chemicals. The most important chemical product is sulphuric acid. This used to be made from brimstone or native volcanic sulphur, which is virtually free from arsenic. But since about 1860 sulphuric acid has been more largely made from iron or copper pyrites. Pyrites-acid is always arsenical, but can, by suitable treatment, be easily freed from that impurity. For many purposes acid that has not been purified is employed. In the Leblanc process of manufacture the first step is the conversion of salt into sodium sulphate by sulphuric acid. The hydrochloric acid which is formed carries with it most of the arsenic of the sulphuric acid. Wherever such hydrochloric acid is used it introduces arsenic; thus, in the separation of glycerin from soap lyes, the alkali of the latter is neutralized with hydrochloric acid and glycerin is in consequence frequently highly arsenical. So is the soda produced in the Leblanc process, and every one of the numerous soda salts made from soda is liable to receive its share. All acids liberated from their salts by sulphuric acid, such as phosphoric, tartaric, citric, boracic, may be, and sometimes are, thus contaminated. All superphosphates, made by the action of crude sulphuric acid upon bones or other phosphatic materials, and sulphate of ammonia, made from gas-liquor and acid, that is to say, two of the most important manurial materials, are arsenical, and the poison is thus spread far and wide over meadows and fields, and can be traced in the soil wherever artificial manures have been applied. The crops sometimes take up arsenic to a slight extent, but happily the plant is more selective than man, and no serious amount of poison absorption appears to be possible. The risk of contamination is, of course, much greater with substances which, like glucose, are not further purified by crystallization, but retain whatever impurity is introduced into them. Glucose is not only used in beer, in which by legal enactments it is permitted to be used, but is also substituted for sugar in a number of food products, and is liable to carry into them its contamination. Sugar confectionery, jams and marmalade, honey, and such like, are often admixed with glucose. It is difficult to say in the present state of the law whether such admixture amounts to adulteration. It was clearly made originally for fraudulent purposes, but usage and high court decisions have gradually given the practice an air of respectability. Vinegar of sorts is also made from a glucose liquor produced by the action of sulphuric acid upon maize or other starchy material, and is, in its turn, exposed to arsenic contamination. There is hardly a chemical substance which has directly or indirectly come into contact with sulphuric acid that is not at times arsenical. Thus, while artificial colours, now so much used for the dyeing of food products, are no longer prepared—-as was rosaniline (the parent substance of so many aniline dyes) at an early stage of its manufacture—with arsenic acid, yet they are often contaminated indirectly from sulphuric acid. Furthermore, hardly any metal that results from the smelting of any ore with coal is free from arsenic, iron in particular, as employed for pots and pans and implements, being highly arsenical. From the iron the many chemical preparations which contain or are made with the aid of iron salts may be arsenicated. The general presence of arsenic from some of these causes has been known for many years; outbreaks of arsenical poisoning have been due to it at various times, but neglect, forgetfulness and human shortsightedness let the matter go into oblivion, and it is safe to predict, in spite of all attention which has been given to the subject, of the panic which was created by the beer-poisoning outbreak, of the shock and injury caused to manufacturers of many kinds, and of the watchfulness aroused in officers of health and analysts, that as long as the production of food materials or substances that go into food materials is not left to the care of nature, and as long as man adds the products of his ingenuity to our food and drink, so long will ``accidents,'' like the Manchester poisoning, from time to time recur. We now search for arsenic; some other time it is lead, or antimony, or selenium, that will do the mischief. Man does what he can according to his light, but he sees but a little patch of the sky of knowledge, while the plant or the animal building up its body from the plant has learned by inheritance to avoid the assimilation of matters noxious to it. Strictly speaking, arsenical poisoning does not belong to the subject of adulteration. It is not due to wilfulness but to stupidity, but it affords a lesson which cannot be taken too much to heart, that mankind, by relying too much upon ``science'' in feeding, is on a path that is fraught with considerable danger. To safeguard consumers, as far as practicable, the royal commission made important recommendations concerning amendments of the Food Acts; these, as at present interpreted and administered, were reported to be unsatisfactory for the purpose of protecting the consumer against arsenic and other deleterious substances in food. ``As a rule public analysts receive samples in order that they may pronounce upon their genuineness or otherwise, knowing nothing of the local circumstances which led to their being taken, of their origin or the reasons for sending them. The term `genuine' in this sense means that the analyst has not detected such objectionable substances as he has considered it necessary to look for in the sample submitted to him. Obviously, the value of the statement that the sample is `genuine' depends upon the extent to which the analyst has means of knowing what are the objectionable substances which it is liable to contain. In present circumstances he has not sufficient information on this point.'' It was also pointed out that the application of the Food Acts to prevention of contamination of foods by deleterious substances was materially hindered by want of an official authority with the duty of dealing with the various medical, chemical and technical questions involved, and that the absence of official standards militated against the efficiency of the existing acts. The commission advised that a special officer be appointed by the Local Government Board to obtain by inquiries from various sources, such information as would enable the board to direct the work of local authorities in securing greater purity of food; and they further recommended that the board or court of reference, which had been advised by the Committee on Food Products Adulteration, should be established. Pending the establishment of official standards in respect of arsenic under the Food Acts, they were of opinion that penalties should be imposed upon any vendor of beer or any other liquid food, or of any liquor entering into the composition of food, if that liquid be shown by adequate test to contain one-hundredth of a grain or more of arsenic in the gallon, and with regard to solid food, no matter whether it be consumed habitually in large or small quantities, or whether it be taken by itself (like golden syrup), or mixed with water or other substances (like chicory or yeast extract)—if the substance contain one-hundredth of a grain of arsenic or more to the pound. The board of reference, most urgently needed for the protection of the public and for the guidance of manufacturers and officers, has yet to be created. While from time immemorial certain articles of food have been preserved by salting, smoking, drying, or by the addition of sugar and in some cases of saltpetre, during the last quarter of the 10th century the use of chemicals acting more powerfully as antiseptics or preservatives extended enormously, particularly in England. A very large fraction of the British food supply being obtained from abroad, a proportionately great difficulty exists in obtaining the food in an entirely fresh and untainted condition. While refrigeration and cold-storage has been the chief factor in enabling the meat and other highly perishable foods to be imported, other steps, ensuring preservation of goods that are collected from farmers and brought together at shipping ports, are necessary to prevent decomposition prior to such goods coming into cold store. Thus it is well-nigh impossible to collect butter from farms in Australia or New Zealand far distant from the coast without the addition of some chemical preservative. Heavily salted goods no longer appeal to the modern palate, and, with the progress of specialized labour, the inhabitants, especially of great towns, have become accustomed to resort to manufactured provisions instead of the home-made and home-cooked food. Manufacturers of many articles of preserved food gradually adopted the use of chemical preservatives, and at the present time the practice has become so general that it may be said that practically every person in the United Kingdom who has passed the suckling stage consumes daily more or less food containing chemical preservatives. The Food Act allows of the addition of any ingredient, not injurious to health, if it be required for the production or preparation of the food, or as an article of commerce, in a state fit for carriage. The legality or otherwise of the use of chemical preservatives, therefore, hinges upon their innocuousness. Upon theoretical considerations it is clear that a substance which is capable of acting as an antiseptic mnst act injuriously upon bacteria, fungi or yeasts, and as the human body is, generally speaking, less resistant to poisons than the low organisms in question, it would seem to follow that antiseptics are bound to affect it injuriously. It is, of course, a question of dose and proportion. It has further been said that all antiseptics possess some sort of medicinal action, and however valuable they may be in disease when administered under the control of a competent physician, they have no business to be given indiscriminately to sick and healthy alike by purveyors of food. The result of a general desire on the part of importers and manufacturers of food materials, of the officers under the Food Act, of the medical profession and of the public, resulted after many years of agitation and complaint and after numerous conflicting magisterial decisions, in the appointment in 1899, by the president of the Local Government Board, of a departmental committee to inquire into the use of preservatives and colouring matters in food, with the reference to report: first, whether the use of such materials or any of them, in certain quantities, is injurious to health, and, if so, in what proportion does their use become injurious, and, second, to what extent and in what amounts are they used at the present time. After the examination of a great number of witnesses a report was issued in 1901. Perhaps the most important conclusion was that the instances of actual harm which were alleged to have occurred from the consumption of articles of food and drink chemically preserved were few in number, and were not at all supported by conclusive evidence. During the period which has elapsed since chemically preserved food has been used, the mortality as a whole has . declined, and while this naturally cannot be put to the credit of the preservatives but is largely due to better feeding in consequence of the introduction of cheaper foods, which are rendered possible to some extent by the use of preservatives, it conclusively establishes the fact that no obvious harm has been done to the health of the community. The committee made certain recommendations which are the most authoritative pronouncements upon the subject. They are as follows:—That the use of formaldehyde or formalin, or preparations thereof, in food or drinks, be absolutely prohibited, and that salicylic acid be not used in a greater proportion than one grain per pint in liquid food and one grain per pound in solid food, its presence in all cases to be declared. That the use of any preservatives or colouring matter whatever in milk offered for sale in the United Kingdom be constituted an offence under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act. That the only preservative which it shall be lawful to use in cream be boric acid, or mixtures of boric acid and borax, and in amount not exceeding 0.25% expressed as boric acid, the amount of such preservative to be notified by a label upon the vessel. That the only preservative permitted to be used in butter and margarine be boric acid, or mixtures of boric acid and borax, to be used in proportions not exceeding 0.5% expressed as boric acid. That in the case of all dietetic preparations intended for the use of invalids or infants, chemical preservatives of all kinds be prohibited.
Borax.
As the most commonly used chemical preservative is boric acid, free or in the form of borax, which is extensively employed in butter, cream, ham, sausages, potted meats, cured butter, cream, ham, sausages, potted meats, cured fish, and sometimes in jams and preserved fruit, the arguments for and against its employment deserve more detailed attention. It cannot be looked upon in the light of common adulteration because, in any case, the quantity used is but an inconsiderable fraction, and the cost of it is generally greater than that of the food itself. It is not used to hide any traces of decomposition that may have taken place or to efface its effects. On the other hand, it cannot be said to be ``required for the production or preparation'' of the articles with which it is mixed, since a fraction at least of similar articles are made without preservative. It enables food to be kept from decomposition, but it also lessens the need for cleanliness and encourages neglect and slovenliness in factories. It has no taste, or only a very slight one, hence does not manifest itself to the consumer in the same way as does common salt, and cannot therefore be avoided by him should he desire to do so. Its preservative action, that is, its potency, is very slight in comparison with most other preservatives; its potential injuriousness to man must be proportionately small. It is practically without interference upon salivary, peptic or tryptic digestion, unless given in large quantities. Experiments made by F. W. Tunnicliffe and R. Rosenheim upon children showed that neither boric acid nor borax, administered in doses of from 15 to 23 grains per diem, exerted any influence upon proteid metabolism or upon the assimilation of phosphatized materials. The fat assimilation was, if anything, improved, and the body weight increased, and the general health and well-being was in no way affected. On the other hand, evidence was adduced that in some cases digestive disturbances, after continuous administration of from 15 to 40 grains, were observable, nausea and vomiting in some, and skin irritation, in one case resulting in complete baldness, in others.
Although it is in most cases very difficult to trace any gastric disturbance to any particular article of food or one of its ingredients, so as to exclude all other possible causes of disturbance, a fairly good case has been made out by a number of medical practitioners against boracic acid, taken in an ordinary diet and not for experimental purposes. The most exhaustive investigation which has as yet been made was carried out by Dr H. W. Wiley, chief chemist to the United States department of agriculture. A large number of young men who had offered themselves as subjects for the investigations, were boarded as a special ``hygienic table,'' but otherwise continued their usual vocations during the whole period of the experiment. They were placed upon their honour to observe the rules and regulations prepared by the department and to use no other food or drink than that provided, water excepted, and any water consumed away from the hygienic table was to be measured and reported. They were to continue their regular habits and not to indulge in any excessive amount of labour or exercise. Weight, temperature and pulse rate were continuously recorded. The periods during which the subjects of the experiment were kept under observation varied from thirty to seventy days, periods of rest being given during which they were permitted to eat moderately at tables other than the experimental one. There was a good and ample diet. The observations were divided into three periods: the fore period, the preservative period and the after period, during the whole of which time the rations of each member were weighed or measured and the excreta collected. Before the ``fore'' period was commenced a note was made of the quantities of food voluntarily consumed by each of the candidates, and from these the proper amount necessary in each case to maintain a comparatively constant body weight was calculated. When a suitable result was thus arrived at, the same quantity of food was given daily during the ``preservative'' and ``after'' periods. The preservative was given in the forms of borax and of boric acid, at first mixed with butter, but subsequently in gelatine capsules. This was found to be necessary from the fact that when the preservative was mixed with the food and concealed in it some of the members of the table evinced dislike of the food with which it was supposed to be incorporated; those who thought that the preservative was in the butter were disposed to find the butter unpalatable, and the same was true with those who thought it might be in the milk or coffee, while, when the preservative was given openly, much less disturbance was created. The preservative was given at first in small doses such as might be consumed in commercial food that had been preserved with borax; gradually the quantities were increased in order to reach the limit of toleration for each individual. All food was weighed, measured and analysed, the same being the case with the excreta. The blood was examined periodically as regards colouring matter and number of corpuscles. Everything was done to keep up the general health of the members and to do away with all unfavourable mental influences due to the circumstances. During the time of the experiment analyses were made of 2550 food samples and 1175 samples each of urine and faeces. The general results were as follows: there was no tendency to excite diarrhoea, and the nitrogen-metabolism was but very little influenced, if anything being slightly decreased. As regards phosphorus the combined results of all observations indicated that the preservative increased the excretion of phosphorus to a small extent, from 97.3% in the ``fore'' period, to 103.1 in the ``preservative'' period. The metabolism of fat was uninfluenced; there was an increase of the solid matters in the faeces and a decrease of those in the urine, from which Dr Wiley concluded that the preservatives interfered with the process of digestion and absorption. No influence was exerted on the corpuscles and the haemoglobin of the blood. The effect of boracic acid and borax on the general health Varied with the amount administered, quantities not exceeding half a gramme (7 1/2 grains) of boracic acid, or its equivalent of borax, producing no immediate effects, but the long-continued administration of such small doses seemed to produce the same results as the use of large doses over a shorter period. There was a tendency to diminish the appetite and to produce a fooling of fulness and uneasiness in the stomach and sometimes actual nausea, also one of fulness in the head manifested as a dull headache which disappeared when the preservative was dropped. The continued administration of large doses, 60 to 75 grains per day, resulted in most cases in loss of appetite, inability to perform work of any kind and general unfitness. In most cases 45 grains per day could be taken for some time, but gradually injurious effects were observed. In some cases 30 and even 15 grains per day appeared to cause illness, but it is acknowledged that these persons may have been suffering from influenza. The administration of 7.5 grains was declared by Dr Wiley to be too much for the normal man to receive regularly, although for a limited period there might be no danger to health. Dr Wiley concludes his report: ``It appears, therefore, that both boric acid and borax, when continuously administered in small doses for a long period or when given in large quantities for a short period, create disturbance of appetite, of digestion and of health.''
Dr Wiley's conclusions were adversely criticized by Dr O. Liebreich, who carefully studied on the spot all the conditions of the experiment and the documents relating to the investigation. He pointed out that the results were so indefinite and the number of persons under control so small that ``one case of self-deception or of forgetfulness only would throw into absolute uncertainty the solution of the whole question''; that no lasting injury to health was found in spite of transient disturbances attributed by Dr Liebreich to other causes, and that all persons declared themselves to be in better physical condition after seven months than they had been before. On the whole the balance of evidence seems to be that while no acute injury is likely to result from boron compounds in food, they are liable to produce slighter digestive interferences.
Formaldehyde.
Other chemical substances that are in use for the purpose of preserving food materials may be treated more shortly. Formaldehyde, coming into commerce in the form of a 40% solution under the name of formalin, was for a time largely used in milk. It certainly has very great antiseptic properties, as little as 1 part in 50,000 parts checking the growth of organisms in milk for some hours, but as the substance combines with albuminous matters and hardens them to an extraordinary degree, rendering, for instance, gelatine perfectly insoluble in water, it exerts an inhibitory effect on the digestive ferments. It injures salivary, peptic and pancreatic digestion. A set of five kittens fed with milk containing 1 part in 50,000 of formaldehyde for seven weeks were strongly retarded in growth, three ultimately dying, while four control kittens fed on pure milk flourished. In even moderate doses formalin produces severe pains in the abdomen and has caused death. It is now generally recognized as a substance that is admirably adapted for disinfecting a sick-room, but quite improper and unsuitable for food preservation.