BUEEAU OF CHEMISTRY. 203 



collaborating State and municipal officials, and in some instances 

 with the cooperation of the United States Food Administration, has 

 been able to get results in the suppression of such abuses very much 

 more speedily than would be possible in normal times. The interest 

 of the Food Administration in certain of these matters has been due 

 to the fact that practices which lead to a violation of the Food and 

 Drugs Act also lead to waste, either in food or in basic materials, 

 such as tin, steel, and coal, or in transportation facilities. The out- 

 standing features, therefore, of the year's work in the enforcement 

 of the Food and Drugs Act have been the recurrence of practices 

 long since discarded as objectionable and more effective cooperation 

 with other officials. To these may be added the fundamental changes 

 in the nature of the food and drug materials offered for import 

 because of Government control of shipping. 



In two cases the courts have handed down decisions of importance 

 in interpretation of the law. In the first of these, published in Notice 

 of Judgment 6142, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh 

 Circuit affirmed the judgment of conviction in the lower court against 

 the Union Dairy Co. for a shipment of milk from Troy, 111., to 

 itself at St. Louis, Mo., the charge being that the milk was watered, 

 and also filthy, putrid, and decomposed. The Union Dairj^ Co. con- 

 tended that it was shipping the milk from a receiving station in 

 Illinois to itself in Missouri, there to be treated, impurities removed, 

 and the milk standardized ; that while in transit it was not an article 

 of food as defined by the Food and Drugs Act and did not become 

 such an article of food until after treatment. The Circuit Court of 

 Appeals held that it would be an unjustifiable construction of the act 

 to make liability turn upon a difference in identity of consignor and 

 consignee or the secret intent with which a shipper made the ship- 

 ment; that it was also unnecessary for the court to receive evidence 

 to establish the fact that the addition of water to milk injuriously 

 affected the quality or strength of the milk. 



In the other case, as reported in Notice of Judgment 6151, the 

 United States Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the District 

 Court sustaining a demurrer to the indictment alleging an article 

 labeled in part " Compound Ess Grape " to have been adulterated 

 and misbranded. The article did not contain any product of the 

 grape, and the United States Supreme Court held " to call it ' com- 

 pound essence of grape ' certainly did not suggest a mere imitation, 

 but on the contrary falsely indicated that it contained something 

 derived from grapes." Mr. Justice McReynolds delivered the opin- 

 ion of the court and made the comment, "The statute enjoins truth; 

 this label exhales deceit." 



DOMESTIC FOODS AND DRUGS. 



Six hundred and thirty-one recommendations for criminal prose- 

 cution and 460 recommendations for seizure were made through the 

 Office of the Solicitor to the Department of Justice. Reports of the 

 termination in the courts of 807 cases were received by the depart- 

 ment. Of these, 149 represent cases alleging false and fraudulent 

 labeling of medicines or misbranding of drugs, in all of which the 

 courts found for the Government; and 147 represent cases alleging 

 adulteration or misbranding of stock feeds, in all of which save two 

 the courts found for the Government. Ninety-five of the 807 cases 



