No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 197 



stauc-e — this dilTering fioin the first offence in tiiat it evidently refers 

 to the more specific cases of complete substitution, or of the partial 

 replacemciit of a standard article by one of like purpose, but of in- 

 ferior use or commercial value; (3) the reduction of quality or 

 strength of an article b}' abstraction from it of any valuable or neces- 

 sary ingredient; (4) imilating another article or selling something 

 else under its name; (5j the sale of diseased, infected or decomposed, 

 tainted or rotten food — or of millc coming from a diseased animal; 

 (G) treatme«t of a material in such numner as to conceal damage or 

 inferiority, of whatever kind; (7) tlie addition of a poisonous or in- 

 jurious ingredient. In the foregoing test of types, no attempt lias 

 been made to adhere to the full vestige of the act, but to express the 

 gift of its classification of typical offences. 



As an earlier paragraph has pointed out, the responsibility detect- 

 ing the adulteratioti rests with the chemist. Where the adulterant 

 is a substance entirely foreign to the food, its detection and usually 

 its quantitative determination are more or less readil}' accomplished. 

 But where the adulteration is such as to be apparent only in some 

 change in the proportion of the iiormal constituents of the food, its 

 detection is far more difficult. In some instances, it is true, that 

 both in the case of manufactured articles and of natural products, 

 the law or some authoritative trade agreement has fixed the stand- 

 ard and made the definition. There are more cases where the 

 chemist is obliged to reach his own definition by careful consultation 

 of legitimate trade interests and a full survey of the commodities in 

 the market, and to establish his standards of comparison. So far 

 as natural products are concerned, the work of standardization is 

 difficult, for these products, even when pure, are found to vary widely. 

 It is not hard in the case of commo4i articles to strike an average of 

 composition; but it lequires wide knowledge of the causes and ex- 

 tent of variation, and a patient consideration of all interests, to es- 

 tablish such a minimum standard as shall, on the one hand, not ex- 

 pose the public too freely to the rapacity of the fraudulent, nor, o« 

 the other hand, to greatly increase the probabilities of injustice to 

 the innocent producer. The association of Official Agricultural 

 Chemists of the United States, to whose membership all State food 

 control chemists are ex-officio entitled, has taken up the systematic 

 consideration of the needful definitions and standards, in consulta- 

 tion with the various interests affected; it is urged that their work, 

 which has the cordial support of the Secretary of Agriculture of the 

 United States, may be helpful to the conduct of food control through- 

 out the Union. 



Among the adulterations of the first class, which chiefly consists 

 in the addition of valueless materials, there are few requiring particu- 

 lar mentio'ii. Of the stajjle foods, milk is probably the only one that 



