392 Dr. Wiley's Resignation [Mar. 



I have been conscious of an official environment which has been 

 essentially inhospitable. 



I saw the fundamental principles of the food and drugs act, as 

 they appeared to me, one by one paralyzed and discredited. It was 

 the piain Provision of the act and was f ully understood at the time of 

 the enactment, as stated in the law itself, that the Bureau of Chem- 

 istry was to examine all samples of suspected foods and drugs to 

 determine whether they were adulterated or misbranded, and that 

 if this examination disclosed such facts the matter was to be referred 

 to the courts for decision. 



Interest after interest, engaged in what the Bureau of Chem- 

 istry found to be the manufacture of misbranded or adulterated 

 foods and drugs, made an appeal to escape appearing in court to 

 defend their practises. Various methods were employed to secure 

 this, many of which were successful. One by one I found that the 

 activities pertaining to the Bureau of Chemistry were restricted 

 and various forms of manipulated food products were withdrawn 

 from its consideration and referred either to other bodies not con- 

 templated by law or directly relieved from further control. 



A few of the instances of this kind are well known. Among 

 these may be mentioned the manufacture of so-called whiskey from 

 alcohol, colors and flavors ; the addition to food products of benzoic 

 acid and its salts; of sulphurous acid and its salts; of sulphate of 

 copper; of Saccharin and of alum; the manufacture of so-called 

 wines from pomace, chemicals and colors; the floating of oysters 

 often in polluted waters for the purpose of making them look fatter 

 and larger than really they are for the purpose of sale; the selling 

 of moldy, f ermented, decomposed and misbranded grains ; the offer- 

 ing to the people of glucose under the name of "corn syrup," thus 

 taking a name which rightfully belongs to another product made 

 directly from Indian corn stalks. 



The official toleration and Validation of such practises have re- 

 stricted the activities of the Bureau of Chemistry to a very narrow 

 field. As a result of these restrictions, I have been instructed to 

 refrain from stating in any public way my own opinion regarding 

 the effect of these substances upon health, and this restriction has 

 conflicted with my academic freedom of speech on matters relating 

 directly to the public welfare. 



