PRESERVATIVES. 583 
preserved by such adulterants invariably leads to disorders 
of the abdominal organs. If the practice is continued for years, 
as is often the case, these disorders may become of a fatal nature ; 
for, what is more probable than that the continual irritation of 
the delicate lining membranes of the alimentary canal by these 
poisons should lead to lesions resulting (as doctors testify) in 
malignant growths about the stomach, or its outlet, the 
pylorus ? 
Again, salicylic acid, from the Winter Green, or the Willow, 
has been long employed for giving a fictitious age to beer by 
taking away the rawness thereof when newly-brewed. But of late 
years salicylic acid has come into further uses than for alcoholic 
adulterations. Preserved foods of various kinds are adulterated 
with this salicylic acid, whilst jams, and jellies are treated with 
glucose. The manufacturers who sell these compounds assure 
us that they are harmless: they declare that salicylic acid is 
known to be “ good for rheumatism”; also that glycerine is 
chemically made within the human stomach during the process 
of digestion, so how can it be harmful? Speaking chemically 
these assertions may be supported, but practically they are false. 
It is true that salicylic acid is used by doctors for treating 
theumatism ; but it is administered cautiously by physicians, 
otherwise they find the heart’s action becomes irregular, or the 
digestion suffers severely. And if this is the experience of 
watchful doctors, who can withhold the drug directly unfavour- 
able results begin to attend its use, how can food manufacturers 
expect to give an unsuspecting purchaser salicylic acid with 
his dinner repeatedly, and without any watchful supervision, 
and yet avoid doing him grave mischief? And the same mode 
of reasoning holds good with regard to glucose. It is true 
theoretically that during digestion starchy foods become trans- 
formed into glucose, and onwards into dextrin. But it is also 
true that the glucose produced in the human economy differs 
from commercial glucose in some way yet undiscovered. The 
fact remains, nevertheless, that commercial glucose causes the 
human subject to suffer severely. And these are the serious 
risks which a large number of persons now run. Countless 
men and women complain of never feeling quite well, of nervous 
prostration, of headache, and of all the long line of ailments, 
which the circumspect doctor knows to be the effect of a slow, 
and cumulative poisoning, due mainly to the adulteration of 
