The adulteration of food : conferences by the Institute of Chemistry on Monday and Tuesday, July 14th and 15th : food adulteration and analysis.

  • International Health Exhibition (1884 : London, England)
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The adulteration of food : conferences by the Institute of Chemistry on Monday and Tuesday, July 14th and 15th : food adulteration and analysis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    might differ whether or not it would necessarily have that effect, and whether the inferior qualities of milk might not be made use of in some similar way to what was called the mingling of brands in other articles. No doubt Dr. Voelcker would be able to give some idea if a limit of quality were fixed, whether it Would interfere with the abundance of supply. Then would come another question, how far it would affect the average result. It might reduce the highest qualities of milk to the lower standard, but even if that undesirable effect resulted, the influence might on the whole be good by improving the general average. At the same time it might be possible to have in the market more than one quality of milk ; they might even perhaps suppose that milk dealers would sell milk guaranteed to be of a certain quality with a certain per- centage of non-fatty solids, a certain amount of cream, and so on. Then came another point also raised by Dr. Bell, the difficulty of analysis by reason of the variety of natural substances, and the question, what should be the standard taken in the case of milk and in the case of butter. They all knew that very considerable differences of opinion had arisen, and had led to some rather warm discussions with regard to what should be the standard which should serve as the means of expressing the proportion of water added to any particular milk. Then came the question of different modes of analysis, and it would be for the meeting to decide whether that subject should be discussed ; but they might certainly consider the point whether it was desirable, in all cases where practicable, to obtain results which were expressible in exact percentages and not rely on mere comparative results. Another point was that some of these adulterants were added with the object and result of improving, as a marketable and eatable article, the materials of the food to which they were added, and a question of considerable importance, how far these effects might be pro- duced without the aid of adulteration ; for instance, in the case of bread, they all knew that alum aided in producing a much more presentable loaf than could be obtained with-
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