Arthur Hill Hassall, physician & sanitary reformer : a short history of his work in public hygiene, and of movement against the adulteration of food and drugs / [Edwy Godwin Clayton].
- Clayton, Edwy Godwin.
- Date:
- 1908
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Arthur Hill Hassall, physician & sanitary reformer : a short history of his work in public hygiene, and of movement against the adulteration of food and drugs / [Edwy Godwin Clayton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![proved by a reference to his book, ‘ Food and its Adultera- tions,’ which is a reprint of the Lancet articles. It can well be believed that the publication in the Lancet of Dr, Hassall’s great series of articles, and their reappearance in book-form at the beginning of 1855, created in many quarters excitement the reverse of pleasurable, and attracted universal attention.^ The following extracts from reviews and journals of the period will give some idea of the deep and general impression made by these disclosures : ‘ General denunciations of grocers did not touch in- dividuals of the craft, and they were consequently not driven to improve the quality of their wares. The Lancet Commission went to work in a different manner, . . . Dr. Hassall, like a modern A1 Raschid, perambulated the town himself, or sent his trustworthy agents to purchase articles, upon all of which the inexorable microscope was set to work; and every fraudulent sample, after due notice given, subjected its vendor to ^ ‘ That the subject of the adulteration of food should not sooner have engaged the attention of our Boards of Health is perhaps not so surprising when it is considered that, until lately, the data did not exist by which the nature of the adulterations practised, and the extent to which they prevail, were made known. This information has now been supplied to a consider- able extent, through the unceasing labours of the Analytical Sanitary Com- mission, published in this journal during the past four years. In connection with these labours, we consider that the time has notv arrived when the name of Dr. Arthur Hassall should be mentioned, on whom these inquiries have almost exclusively devolved [the italics are the present writer’s], and to whom belongs the credit of having brought to light practices in relation to the adulteration of food of the highest importance, and of the extent and nature of which no one previously entertained any adequate conception. It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of these labours, either in a pecuniary or sanitary point of view, both as regards the public and the medical profession. To Dr. Hassall, then, we would say, belongs the merit of having established in this country a new and distinct department of public hygiene.’—The Lancet, 1854, 152 : leading article on the appointment of the new Board of Health, presided over by Sir Benjamin Hall. ‘ The publication of these papers marked a new era in legal medicine and the investigation of foods, and the technical application of the microscope was fully developed in the English use. It was not so, however, among Continental chemists, for Hureaux. in his Histoire des Falsifications,” pub- lished in 1855, scarcely mentions the microscope. . . . This is the more curious, since the author was aware of the evidence given before the Select Committee, as is obvious from more than one reference.’—‘Foods; Their Composition and Analysis,’ by A. Wynter Blyth, fourth edition, i8g6. 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28989995_0037.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
