Foods, their composition and analysis : a manual for the use of analytical chemists and others : with an introductory essay on the history of adulteration / by Alexander Wynter Blyth.

Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foods, their composition and analysis : a manual for the use of analytical chemists and others : with an introductory essay on the history of adulteration / by Alexander Wynter Blyth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    established standards for spirits. (See sections on the “Existing Law relative to Adulteration.”) V.—THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT SCIENTIFIC PROCESSES FOR THE DETECTION OF ADULTERATION. § 27. If an attempt were made to write the full history of the modern system of the practical assaying of foods, beverages, and drugs, the result would be neither more nor less than a history of the development of the chemical, physical, botanical, and medi- 1 cal sciences ; for there has scarcely been a single advance in any one of those sciences which has not some beai'ing, immediate or remote, on our subject. Hence, the more useful and less am- bitious method to pursue will be merely to notice the chief writ- ings and the more noteworthy discoveries of those who have explored this special field of investigation. The very early and brief notices in the old writers have been already mentioned. The first general works on adulteration were devoted to drugs rather than to foods, and the herbals and the older works contain here and there, scattered through their prolix pages, casual mention of substitutions or falsifications. For example, Saladin of Ascala, a physician to the Grand Constable of Naples, who wrote in the fifteenth century a work on the aromatic principles of drugs, describes methods of preserving food, and in speaking of the adulteration of manna with sugar and starch, cites the case of an apothecary who was fined heavily and deprived of his civil rights.* § 28. In the early part of the seventeenth century Bartoletus discovered by analysis milk-sugar (see chapter on “Milk”), and to this epoch belong also some observations and experiments of another Italian, San Francesco Redit of Florence, published in 1660, on the amount of mineral substances in pepper, ginger, and ] * This work, “Compendium Aromatarium,” was published in Augsburg, 1481. There is no separate copy in the British Museum, but it will be found as the “ Liber Saladini ” in the beautiful folio edition of the Arabic phy- sician (Yuinannfi, ibn Massawaih), Joann Li inesuae damasceni medico Claris- simi opera, etc., de medicamentorum delectu, castigalione ct usu, Ac., Ac., folio, Venice, 1623. The work is in the old dialogue style, consisting for the most part of question and ansu'er. The hooks preceding the “ Liber Saladini ” also contain some observations on adulteration. t Francesco liedi, 162G-1697 ; he was at once a poet, a chemist, and a physician.