PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS TO MANCHESTER MICRO. SOCIETY. 99 
In the social aspect of the utility of the microscope, we are 
naturally reminded of its use in the detection of adulteration of 
food, scientific and religious imposture, and more serious crime ; 
and of the assistance it has been in perfecting the knowledge of 
disease and the practice of medicine. 
Most of you are aware of the part the microscope has taken in 
the detection of foreign and injurious substances in articles of diet. 
The various starches, which form an important part of our daily 
food, can be readily distinguished from each other by the micros- 
cope, although they have all the same chemical reactions. A cheap 
farina may thus be detected when mixed with a more expensive 
one. ‘The cells of chicory can be distinguished from those of 
coffee, and the foreign ingredients of chicory itself, viz: acorns, 
carrots, and sawdust. The leaf adulterants of tea may also be 
recognised by their microscopical characters ; and the various sub- 
stances which can be detected by other means, such as gravitation 
in fluids, may also be recognised by the microscope. I will remind 
you of some recent legislation which has resulted from microscopical 
as well as other scientific inquiries of this kind. From 1851 to 
1854 a series of articles on Adulteration appeared in the Lancet, 
the result of which was a parliamentary inquiry and the passing of 
the Adulteration of Food Act of 1860. An amended act was 
passed in 1872. These provided for the appointment of local 
analysts, with medical, chemical, and microscopical knowledge 
sufficient to cope with the mysteries of adulteration, which the 
resources of science and art had assisted to rear and foster. In- 
spectors were to be appointed to purchase suspected articles of 
food, drink, and drugs, and to prosecute the vendors upon the 
detection of adulteration, the penalty varying with the nature of 
the offence, from a fine not exceeding in any case fifty pounds, to 
imprisonment for six months with hard labour. In the days of 
Edward I., they had a summary method of dealing with misde- 
meanants, for according to the Lzber Albus, it was provided that 
“if any default shall be found in the bread of a baker in the city, 
the first time let him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall 
to his own house through the great street where there be most 
people assembled, and through the great streets which are most 
dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck ; if a second time 
he shall be found committing the same offence, let him be drawn 
from the Guildhall through the great street of Cheepe, in the man- 
ner aforesaid, to the pillory, and let him be put upon the pillory, 
and remain there at least one hour in the day; and the third time 
that such default be found, he shall be drawn, and the oven shall 
be pulled down, and the baker made to foreswear the trade in the 
city for ever.” 
In the-detection of other forms of imposture the microscope is 
