In the line of chemicals many of these acci dental adulterations exist and the labelling of such substances H C.P." (chemically pure) should never be taken at its face value but proved by rigid tests. At the same time it must be borne in mind that a failure to meet all the re9uirements of an arbitrary standard is not evidence of adulteration or deterioration. Standards are established with but one or two objects pnmarily in view and a condemned chemical may be entirely suited to another use.
Among intentional adulterations in this class may be mentioned as examples : Alcohol, with wood alcohol; beeswax, with starch and ceresin artificially colored; geranium oil, with gingergrass oil; glycerine, with glucose and cane sugar; linseed oil, with mineral oils; lin seed meal, deprived of its natural oil which is with cheaper oirs; phenacetine, with the cheaper acetanilid; Seidlitz powders, with Epsom and Glauber's salts; soaps, with starch, flour, mineral oils and excess of water; tea sweepings (for the manufacture of caffeine), with many sorts of leaves and dirt ; turpentine, with kerosene, etc., etc. Many drugs in leaf and root form have had their active principles removed by distillation or solution and some powdered drugs show an admixture with flax seed meal and variously tinted sawdust.
These are very variously adul terated with cheaper dyes, determinable, if at all, by expert chemical examination.
Flour and Flour is not much adul terated in the United States, though it is in Europe, where the masses are poorer. The chief admixture is ground gypsum or other minerals, which can be detected with the mi croscope; diluents but harmless. Wheat flour is too often adulterated with corn, rye flour with both corn and low grade wheat and buck wheat flour with all three. The chief illegiti mate additions to bread are alum and sulphate of copper, to whiten it or correct sourness. Alum in baking-powder is not thought objec tionable, the heat of baking converting the mixture into insoluble aluminum phosphate; and by itself its chief harm is in disguising any sourness of the bread. Copper sulphate is always dangerous. Both are tested by dis solvinggelatine, laid for some hours on a sop of bread, in a wood-alcohol tincture of log wood with ammonium carbonate, which turns blue for alum and green for the copper salt.
Strained honey, a costly article when pure, is often heavily adulterated with glucose syrup, invert-sugar, cane sugar, gela tine, etc. An educated taste is a better guide to these than any analysis, as that of native flower-fed honey is beyond counterfeiting; but chemical analysis can detect most of them. Formerly comb honey was regarded as neces sarily pure but modern beekeepers have been able to feed their bees with glucose and cane sugar syrup which the bees innocently store in the combs as readily as they do pure honey. The charge has been made by English chemists that American combs are often made of par affine; this is most improbable as the profit would be extremely small; and a very simple test will decide it. The microscope will show pollen grains in the real wax and warm sul phuric acid will blacken beeswax but not par affine.
Hogs' lard is frequently adulterated w'th stearine, tallow and cottonseed oil; other vegetable oils such as peanut oil, corn oil and cocoanut oil are more rarely used. The worst adulteration is water, which is successfully incorporated with the lard under pressure and, of course, sold at the price of lard. A common commercial fraud is the selling of low-grade hog fat for "leaf lard," the choice layers of fat from certain tissues of the animal.
adulterations of milk are re ducible to five: Diluting, skimming, replacing the skimmed cream with cheaper animal fats, coloring to give it the look of cream and add ing preservatives or correctives to keep it from souring or to sweeten its taste when beginning to turn. Its use as the staff of life for chil dren and invalids makes its purity one of the most exigent demands and its poor quality or innutritiousness a direct or promoting source of widespread disease and death. In some great cities pure milk is not attainable for the masses at any price within the means of ordinary workmen; tie dairy districts within reach of the city by train, during any time it will keep sweet and not churn, cannot supply enough for all and it is inevitably diluted with water and more or less of it treated with chemicals. This adulteration may be still further in creased by skimming off of the cream to sell separately, heavily reducing its nutritive value Still worse, the water used in dilution is not likely to be free from the bacteria of disease (diphtheria, typhoid and scarlet-fever out breaks have been repeatedly traced to this cause, sometimes merely from cooling leaky cans in the tainted water) ; from decaying ani mal or vegetable matter, or from the germs with which street dirt is laden. (The contam ination from sores on cows kept in unsanitary conditions belongs to another subject). As to the effect of the adulterations: Skim-milk is a cheap and valuable food for blood-making protein, as evinced by the cheese made from it; but it should be sold as such, otherwise in fants and invalids who need the milk fat may be injured. Other fats do not replace the characteristic and valuable qualities of the cream. Of the chemicals used topreserve milk for short periods, formaldehyde (also used for preserving other foods) is most com monly employed. One part of formaldehyde in 10,000 parts of milk will keep the milk sweet for five days. In this proportion it has not been proved injurious to infants. It is usually added in only half this proportion, preserving the milk for three days. It is urged against its use that it destroys beneficent bacteria in the milk. Borax, salt and carbonate of soda are also used; neither they nor the arnotto used to give the milk a cream color are harm ful in themselves, but only as disguising the real quality of the milk sold. Benzoic acid and salicylic acid are also found by milk inspectors in some samples. Cane sugar, glucose, starch, gelatine and even chalk are used to bring up diluted milk to a density which will stand the lactometer test. In some instances this has been done by adding condensed skimmed milk and some oil.