An outbreak in 1900 of a mysterious illness among beer drinkers turned out to be arsenical poisoning from the use in the beer of glucose made with sulphuric acid which had been ob tained from iron pyrites — which is always arsenical unless specially purified. Investigation disclosed the fact that this same glucose was used in the manufacture of many common acids employed in preparing foods and medicines, and in jams, jellies, honey and candies.
In 1904, examinations of 84,678 samples of food articles revealed adulterations in 7,173 instances, a proportion of 8.5 per cent. Of all wines inspected, 17 per cent were adulterated; of spirits, 12 per cent; of milk, 11 per cent; of cocoa, 9 per cent; of oleomargarine, 7 per cent; of beer, 7 per cent; of coffee, 6 per cent; of butter, 6 per cent; of confectionery and jams, 5 per cent; of sugar, 5 per cent; of mustard, 5 per cent. At the other end of the list were bread and lard with one-fifth of 1 per cent.
In the United States public opinion was very slow in crystallizing into the Federal "Food and Drugs Act" of 30 June 1906. Several previous attempts had been made to get such a law upon the statute books, but powerful inter ests had succeeded in preventing it. As early as 1895 the State of Michigan had passed a very complete pure food law along practically the line of the later Federal law. Wisconsin, in 1898, had passed a still better law, and these laws with some few modifications are still in force in these States. Massachusetts in 1902, and Minnesota in 1905, antedated the Federal law with effective food laws of their own. These State laws in fact established the basis of the National law.
At the time of the passage of the law kr, vigorously opposed by patent medicine mr facturers, rectifiers of spirituous liquors, wi..2 sale grocers and druggists — a vast artor were flourishing upon practices forbidder the new law. When it had actually becirx law, the objectors at once took steps to its thorough enforcement. In the act C r. stipulated that the Bureau of Chemistry slim decide cases of alleged adulteration. Tz provision was practically annulled by the in trary appointment of a board of food and C.:. inspection whose findings were made upon the Bureau of Chemistry. The person of this board was influenced by- the oppeor of the law, and it immediately espoused interests of the manufacturers and not ths of the public. The adulterations continnK full blast, almost as before.
The Federal Food and Drugs Act °rem directly in the District of Columbia and _ Territories, and upon interstate commerce r imports, but not at all upon the vast bolt intrastate traffic in foods. The State laws is cover the intrastate trade, and at the tint the passage of the national food law such laws as there were along this line were ing in uniformity. Within a year or two m a the States passed food laws following r erally the national law, and unfortunately most cases, repeating its inadequacies. H-' ever, not a few of them have added = protective restrictions and prohibitions existing in the national law to the very g= benefit of those commonwealths.
The effect of the Federal law and the laws which closely imitate it is twofold it prohibits the manufacture and sale of ful foods and of all foods in which harz substances have, for any reason, been (2) it compels the truthful labelling of which are adulterated with harmless subsm, The effect of the latter section has bee make the law primarily a labelling law, fc. of the misbranding and most of the add:: tions made statutory offenses under the can be corrected and the penalties escapet: cautious labelling. The Secretary of Agri. ture in his report for 1909 says: is an ugly word in the popular mind. It err with it the idea that there is grave el2nvc the public health when adulterated foods consumed. This may or may not be Under section 7 of the Food and Drugs adulterations are of two kinds, namely. those which may be injurious to health, (2) those which are not unwholesome ' which debase the character or value of food. Adulteration of the latter type wt disappears when the foods are properly so that the consumer knows exactly w1u.. being purchased." The burden of selecting food which is pure and wholesome and t: nomical is thus made to depend altogether the education of the purchaser. The ignor: are the ones who will suffer, and they art ones who need the protection which, hosetc the law gives to the manufacturers. For n ample, a jar of food labelled aRaspberry 14' may not contain raspberries or any other fr.. but, so long as the label also contains a of percentages of what the "jam" is the manufacturer is by that label protec:, from prosecution for adulteration. The iv: nay be °debased in character and value" but, la the eye of the law as explained by the n.ecretary who enforces it, the adulteration c wholly disappears') with the proper label.