CHECKS UPON ADULTERATION.
Trtz public has already anticipated the report of the Select Com- mittee on the "Adulteration of Food, Drinks, and Drugs "; and the journals are forestalling the probable recommendations which the Committee may make as to the proper cheek upon the abuse. The report will, of course, state to Parliament that the practice of adul- teration is so extensive as to be in reference to some commodities almost universal, and that the substances used for the purposes of adulteration are in many cases injurious to health, and in not a few poisonous. They are employed principally for three purposes—to increase the bulk of the article nominally sold, with a more in- expensive substance ; to heighten the pungency of the taste, or to restore it where adulteration has already dilated the flavour ; and to improve the appearance, especially by heightening the colour. Thus, chicory is used in coffee, sprats in-lieu of anchovies, water is pat into gin, for the purpose of bulk ; mineral acidsiuto pickles, cayenne pepper into gin, for purposes of flavour ; copperas into pickles, earths into anchovies, vermilion into cayenne, for pur- poses of colouring. Chicory is a drug with properties not always required by those who drink coffee ; no art can make sprats so agreeable as anchovies, except to the vendor ; copperas and ver- milion are poisons.
One of the witnesses before the Committee, a person of well- known experience, has made representations intended to diminish the effect of other evidence. He says that the accusers of the re- tail traders have only partial information,—they have displayed much ignorance ; they are not thoroughly skilled in the manipu- lation of chemical tests ; they have oonfounded casual impurities, which are of no material importance, with intentional adulteration ; they have grossly exaggerated as to the extent of the practice and as to the degree of the vitiation. There may be force in Mr. Redwood's evidence; but on reexamination he is obliged to valify it considerably ; and it must be taken only as qualifying. He speaks slightingly of some drugs, because they are administered only in small quantities. In gin, for example, he represents that the oil of vitriol intended to give the appearance of beading, as if the spirit were fresh and potent, only exists in the proportion of one drop to a gallon. Now, unquestionably, there are substances poisonous in a concentrated form which become practically innocuous when so largely diluted ; but are there not others which acquire an accu- mulated virulence by being slowly lodged in "the system " ? This is a part of-chemistry into which philosophical inquiries have but lately entered. The causes celebres present us with eases very like that of Large, or the story suspected to explain the case of Wooler at Darlington, where poison is administered in such small quantities as not to be perceptible in the immediate effects, 'with certain death at the end of a protracted period. As is gene- rally the case with empirical science, homosopathy has not quite established its own principles, but it has thrown light upon the chemistry of medicine. One of the opprobria that have baffled the homceopathist consists in the diversity of action observed in differ- ent drugs when exhibited in a highly comminuted form. With sonic chemical agents the action appears to be reduced almost to nil— absolutely nil, the regular practitioner would say. With others, on the contrary, the action is perceptible with an activity beyond all proportion to the amount exhibited. The principle acted upon by the late Mr. Crosse, the chemical magician of the Quantock Hills, bears upon this part of the adulteration question. His principle is, to copy Nature, who uses greatly diluted chemical agents steadily sustained for long periods of time. With a drop of acid, said Mr. Crosse, I will remove a ton of gold, if the time be granted me. A ton of gold shall be suspended in a tank of water, and at some distance from it a stone; with a current of electricity kept up between the two, the gold and the stone, a single drop of acid let fall into that water will first go to the gold and load itself, then to the stone, and deposit the gold, and back again to gather a new load ; and so, with sufficient time, the ton shall be carried away and settled on the stone. The principle of Mr. Crosse's experiment applies to minerals and acids in other re- ceptacles, if the conditiofie of watery vehicle and electricity be given. Now, in the human frame, the brain is the electric machine; and Heaven knows what pranks that chemical magician, the adulterator, may not play with us ; while the human frame is not fitted like the tank to stand the racket of such experiments. Mr. Redwood's evidence may have some force in mitigating the parti- cular personal blame of individual adulterators; but there ought to be no adulteration, even in minutely diluted proportions. The remedy ? It has been suggested by Dr. Hassell, that au- thorized public analyzers should be appointed, to whom suspected articles might be brought. In some parts of the Continent there is a market officer to examine fungi and cast aside the poisonous kinds. The Economist suggests that the office should be left to the usual trading processes. "Caveat emptor!" But our con- temporary also proposes that the business of analyzing should constitute a trade of itself, and that the buyer, first foregoing the ignorant and vulgar desire to purchase goods at a price which will not pay for the real article, should carry his purchases to the pro- fessional analyzer; leaving exposure as the proper cheek upon bad tradesmen. Our contemporary ought to remember, in the first place, that a private analyzer would be open to the same actions for libel with which the Lancet was threatened ; in the second place, that the poor—a very numerous class in this country—are so hard pressed for the means of outlay that they will buy rotten meat, which is notorious poison ; in the third place, that if the profession be an open one, all kinds of empirics will compete in it, and the most defenceless purchasers will commonly go to the lower analyzers, the business itself being then open to the adul- teration which it is intended to check. If there were official ana- lyzers, it is probable that exposure would be sufficient; but in addition the offender should be liable to a penal cheek. Adultera- tion is, at least, fraud upon the purchaser, making him lay out his money on false pretenoes; but it is sometimes a homioidal act, sad it might be punished on the same principle that we puaish homi- cidal carelessness. Publio analyzers, therefore, authorized to
ex-
pose the delinquent, would cheek the larger number; and in graver cases a summary appeal to the police law would give the requisite example to deter.
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