No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 21 



"The recent session held in Chicaj^o by the Committee appointed 

 by the United States Senate to investigate the adulterations of food, 

 furnished a splendid opportunity for the ventilation of the entire food 

 question, and especially that phase of it pertaining to the use of 

 preservatives. Seldom have so many chemists of undoubted expe- 

 rience and reputation uniformly and unequivocally agreed to a ques- 

 tion upon which there was generally supposed to be a decided differ- 

 ence of opinion. The witnesses called to testify because of their ex- 

 perience in the examination of food and their adulterations, comprised 

 Dr. W. T. Wiley, Chief Chemist to the Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington; Dr. A. S. Mitchell, Chemist to the Davey Commission of 

 Wisconsin; Professor A. B. Prescott and Professor Victor C. Vaughn, 

 of the University of Michigan, and Professor C. S. N. Halburg, of the 

 School of Pharmacy of the University of Illinois. Every one of these 

 gentlemen laid down the principle that the addition of any substance 

 which will retard or prevent fermentation or other change of decom- 

 position in food or food products in its jprejyaration or preservation^ 

 will also retard^ impair or prevent the changes of decomposition upon 

 which the digestion and consequent assimilation depend^ and to that 

 extent interfere with nutrition. This is the broad principle, and, 

 measured by it, all antiseptics, antiferments or other preservative 

 agents of this character, such as salicylic acid and other phenol de- 

 rivatives, boric acid, formaldehyde, &c., should be relegated to per- 

 forming their original function, namely, the paralyzing of pathogenic 

 bacteria in surgical operations and on the cadaver, and not for inges- 

 tion in the healthy human stomach, except for intestinal antiseptics 

 and similar therapeutic purposes. Yet there is no principle, perhaps, 

 without an exception, and such seems to be the case here. Some of 

 the experts belieyed that there was a legitimate use for antiseptics, 

 or, rather, antiferments, in that class of food preparations called 

 condiments. Thus it w^as pointed out that catsup could not be pre- 

 served for a desirable length of time in the average household with- 

 out the addition of some preservative. Since the quantities used of 

 such articles by each individual is comparatively small, no harm could 

 arise from the employment, within certain defined limits, of a pre- 

 servative agent in this instance. With less force may the same limi- 

 tation be applied to the preservation of certain saccharin beverages, 

 although the more largely used of these — such as beer^ — require no 

 addition for their preservation — heat and refrigeration alone. The 

 additions are, moreover, objectionable, from the fact, as pointed out 

 by Professor Prescott, that their use facilitates the sale of foods 

 which otherwise would be rejected on account of its apparent in- 

 ferior quality or liability to spoil; also, according to Dr. Vaughn, in 

 that the antiferments are employed in lieu of, or to cover up, defective 

 or otherwise faulty sterilization and, possibly, refrigeration." 



