Volume 1

Arts, manufactures, professions and trades : designed as a comprehensive supplement to the pharmacopoeia and general book of reference for the manufacturer, tradesman, amateur, and heads of families.

  • Arnold James Cooley
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Arts, manufactures, professions and trades : designed as a comprehensive supplement to the pharmacopoeia and general book of reference for the manufacturer, tradesman, amateur, and heads of families. 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.

    54/916 page 38
    ADJECTIVE—ADULTERATION can be worked up more profitably than in making artificial adipocere. Hatchettino or rock-fat is sometimes called 'adipocere'; and bog-butter is a substance nearly similar to it. AD'JECTIVE. Spi. Adjecti'vus, L. ; Ad- JECTIF, Fr. In dyeing, depending on another, or on something else; applied to those colours which require a base or mordant to render them permanent. See Dyeing. AD'JUVANT. [Eng.,rr.] Syn. Ad'juvans, L.; Aidant, &c., Fr, Assistant; helping. (As a substantivQ—) In prescriptions, see Peesceibing (Art of). ADULTERATION. Strictly speaking, this term ought only to be applied to the practice of adding substances to articles of commerce, food or drink, for the purposes of deception or gain, but a wider interpretation is frequently placed on the word than the definition given by magistrates and analysts, these latter often regarding accidental impurity, or even, in some instances, actual substitution as acts of adulteration. The following definition of an adulterated substance has been adopted by the Society of Public Analysts— A substance shall be deemed to be adul- terated— A. In the case of food or drink : 1. If it contain any ingredient which may render such article injurious to the health of a consumer. 2. If it contain any substance that sensibly increases its weight, bulk, or strength, or gives it a fictitious value, unless the amount of such substance present be due to circum- stances necessarily appertaining to its collec- tion or manufacture, or be necessai-y for its preservation, or unless the presence thereof be acknowledged at the time of sale. 3. If any important constituent has beeii wholly or in part abstracted or omitted, unless acknowledgment of such abstraction or omis- sion be made at the time of sale. 4. If it be an imitation of or sold under the name of another article. B. In the case of drugs: 1. If when retailed for medical purposes under a name recognised in the ' British Phar- macopoeia' it be not equal in strength and purity to the standard laid down in that work. 2. If when sold under a name not recognised in the ' British Pharmacopoeia' it differs ma- terially from the standard laid down in ap- proved works on materia medica, or the professed standard under which it is sold. Limits. The following shall be deemed limits for the respective articles referred to: Milk shall contain not less than 9'0 per cent., by weight, of milk solids, not fat, and not less than 2*5 per cent, of butter fat. SMm Milk shall contain not less than 9'0 per cent, by weight of milk solids not butter fat. Butter shall contain not less than 80 per cent, of butter fiit, Tea shall not contain more than 8-0 per cent, of mineral matter, calculated on the tea dried at 100° C, of which at least 3'0 per cent, shall be soluble in water, and the tea as sold shall yield at least 30 per cent, of extract. Cocoa shall contain at least 20 per cent, of cocoa fat. Vinegar shall contain not less than 3 per cent, of acetic acid. The practice of fraudulent adulteration has been indulged in for centuries. In every civi- lised state there have been enactments against it. The Romans had their inspectors of meat and corn. In England an Act to prohibit adulteration was passed as early as 1267, and penalties against it were in force in 1581, 1604, 1836,1851. In 1822, Accum published a work having the sensational title of ' Death in the Pot,' and in 1855 appeared Dr Hassall's book, ' Food and its Adultera- tions.' The information conveyed in these works, added to the revelations of the ' Lancet' Sanitary Commission, and the contributions to scientific literature on the subject of food by Letheby, Pavy, Parkes, Blyth, and others, together with the published evidence given before the House of Commons Commission appointed to carry out an inquiry into the subject, roused public attention to such a degree as to lead to the passing by the legis- lature of the Adulteration Acts. The sophistications may be divided into several distinct classes: 1. To give weight or volume, such as water added to butter, plaster of paris to fiour, &c.; red earths to annatto, sand to tea-leaves, &c.; water to milk, &c.; all these, therefore, are substitutions of worthless or very cheap articles which take the place of the real. 2. To give a colour which either makes the article more pleasing to the eye, or else disguises an inferior one, e.g., Prussian blue, black lead, &c., to green teas; annatto to cheese, &c.; arsenite of copper to sweet- meats, &c. 3. Substitutions of a cheaper form of the article, or the same substance from which the strength has been extracted put in the place of the real, e.g., tea mixed with spent leaves, &c. 4. A very small class where the adulteration is really added with no fraudulent intent, but to enhance the quality of the goods sold— alum to bread in small quantities. The following, according to Blyth (' Die. of Hygiene'), is a list of articles most com- monly adulterated, with the names of the substances used in their sophistication:— AcoNiTiA with other alkaloids, e.g., del- phinia, aconella, &c. Ale, common salt, Coceulus indicus, grains of paradise, quassia, and other bitters, sul- phate of iron, alum, &c. Allspice, mustard husks.
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