Food poisoning / by Edwin Oakes Jordan.

  • Edwin O. Jordan
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Food poisoning / by Edwin Oakes Jordan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (over 0.3 gram per day) is likely to induce disturbance of digestion. As a substitute for sugar in ordinary foodstuffs it is undesirable.1 The use of cheap chemically prepared flavors such as “fruit ethers” in “soft drinks,” fruit syrups, and the like in place of the more expensive natural fruit extracts affords another well-known instance of substitution. Probably more important hygienically is the production of “foam” in “soda water” by saponin, a substance known to be injurious for red blood corpuscles. Among the many other familiar examples of food substitution, sophistication, and adulteration there are some of demonstrable hygienic disadvantage and others whose chief demerit lies in simple deception. Of prac¬ tically all it may be said that they are indefensible from the standpoint of public policy since they are based on the intent to make foodstuffs appear other than what they really are. It is the opinion of some who have closely followed the course of food adulteration that, while the amount of general sophistication—legally permissible and other¬ wise—has greatly increased in recent years, the propor¬ tion of really injurious adulteration has fallen off. Be that as it may, it is plain that the opportunity for whole¬ sale experimentation with new substances should not be allowed to rest without control in the hands of manu¬ facturers and dealers largely impelled by commercial motives. So long as the motive of gain is allowed free scope, so long will a small minority of unscrupulous persons add cheap, inferior, and sometimes dangerous ingredients to foodstuffs. The net of restriction must 1 See U.S. Dept, of Agric., Report 94, 1911.
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