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.

    71/674 (page 37)
    O r» corpuscles (see article on “ Milk ”). Dr. Ure, in an important case in which an attempt was made to evade the duty on cassava starch by calling it arrowroot, and importing it as such, detected the fraud by the microscopic appearances alone. An excellent collection of objects illustrating the minute anatomy of plants was to be found in 1845 in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, the catalogue of which was edited in an illustrated form by Professor Quekett.* About the same time, Quekett also delivered several lectures on histology, in the course of which he pointed out the value of the microscope in the detection of fraud.t § 31. In the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, chemistry advanced with rapid strides: Neumann Caspar]; made various experiments on milk, wine, butter, tea, coffee, and other substances ; the Boerhave School § analysed milk ; Berzelius issued his chemical papers ; Scheele instituted a variety of researches, and thus the foundation was being laid of those processes which were improved and perfected by the philosophical mind of Liebig, and applied in the analyses of various vegetable products |] by Mulder, many of whose methods are still quoted and taken to a certain extent as standard. This advance in chemical science was naturally accompanied by more elaborate and scientific works on food, and for the first time it became possible to study the subject in a philosophical manner, and to apply a variety of processes for the detection of fraud. § 32. There was published, in 1820, a work on the adulteration of food, by Frederick Accum,H which is sometimes inaccurately referred to by writers of the present day as “ Death in the Pot.” Accum, however, wrote no work beai-ing that title, which be- longs properly to a little book by an anonymous writer, to be noticed presently. Accum’s work, appearing just at a time when several brewers had been fined heavily for having in their possession illegal substances, and being reviewed most favourably by the press, exercised a very great influence on the public mind * “Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Histological Series in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons,” vol. ii., 1850. + “ Lectures on Histology, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, + “The Chemical Works of Neumann Caspar, abridged and methodised.’’ By William Lewis. London, 1773. Neumann Caspar, M.D., vom Thee Catfee, Rier und Wein : Leipsic, 1735. § See chapter on “ Milk.” II “The Chemistry of Animal and Vegetable Physiology, translated from the Dutch.” By P. F. H. Fromberg : Edinburgh, 1S45. H “ A Treatise on the Adulteration of Food and Culinary Poisons, exhibit- ing the Fraudulent Sophistication of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spirituous Liquors, lea, Coffee, &c.” By Frederick Accum : London, 1S20.