FEDERAL INSPECTION OF FOOD IN CANADA. 
It would be distinctly a matter for surprise if the natural rapacity 
of man had not found a field of operation in the supply of articles of food. 
These are of necessity in universal demand, as well by the simple and 
ignorant as by the instructed and critical buyer; and it would be strange | 
indeed, did so tempting an opportunity for profit through fraud remain 
unexploited. 
History furnishes many instances of frauds of the kind which we 
recognize as adulteration; but the adulteration most frequently takes 
the form of short weight or measure, and only rarely so far as foods and 
drugs are concerned, that of substitution or admixture. Archimedes’ 
application of the principle of relative density to the detection of baser 
metal in admixture with gold, is probably the first recorded scientific 
testing with a view to detect and prove adulteration by substitution of 
a less valuable component. It is noteworthy that early attempts at 
this kind of adulteration, were apparently restricted to commodities of 
extremely high value. Thus Dioscorides writes of the adulteration of 
opium, with less valuable gums; Pliny of the addition of ordinary 
wines to the rich wine of Falerno. Nor, is this surprising; because it 
remained for our perfected organizations of industry, and the develop- 
ment of modern means of transportation, to make possible a remuner- 
ative sophistication of low-priced goods, where an enormously extended 
sale must compensate for a small apparent gain. It is only where a 
very large market is at command that the addition of ten per cent. of 
water to lard, or of twenty per cent. of ground olive stones or cocoa nut 
shell to pepper, can become temptingly profitable for the manufacturer. 
A little reflection upon the conditions of production and distribu- 
tion in the twentieth Century, as contrasted with those obtaining in 
earlier centuries, will enable any one to understand why the matter of 
adulteration of foods and drugs, which could be treated as of small 
account in the past, has become a subject of recognized importance in 
every civilized country to-day. I have already referred to the in- 
fluence of manufacture on the large scale, and of improved facilities for 
distribution, as making an apparently small margin of profit still a 
matter of consequence. We have further to remember that applied 
science has furnished us with new materials, with new methods of work- 
ing and with the means of preserving perishable foods from decay, 
without the introduction of substances which, like the older preserva- 
tives, salt, spices, alcohol, creosote, &c., make their presence evident 
to the senses. 
