122 THE MICROSCOPE. 



lean meat taken from oleomargarine. There can be no question that 

 immense amounts of oleomargarine are sold and used as pure butter. 

 I regard it as a dangerous article, and would on no account permit 

 its use in my family. Much credit is due the Sanitary Engineer, 

 published in New York city, for its frequent and energetic exposures 

 of food and drug adulterations. — Ex. 



Food Adulter.atigns. — T/ie Medical Bulletin for May gives us 

 some important information on the subject of food adulteration. It 

 gives us the experience of several scientific gentlemen as to the 

 criminal adulterations of some of our common articles of diet. It 

 says: 



Prof. S. VV. Johnson, Professor of Chemistry in the Sheffield 

 Scientific School, Yale College, has, speaking in the presence of the 

 leading scientists of the United States, at Saratoga, in September 

 last, said, "I find, among other adulterations named, the following 

 as liable to be found: Bread, with alum and sulphate of copper; 

 yeast, with alum; baking powder, with alum, terra alba, plaster of 

 Paris, whiting and kaolin; milk with a variety of articles; cheese, 

 with potatoes, beans, oleomargarine, vermillion, red chalk, sulphate 

 of copper, arsenic, and corrosive sublimate; lard, with boiled starch, 

 alum, and quicklime; confectionery, with chromate of lead, vermil- 

 lion, Prussian blue, copper and arsenic; pickles, with sulphuric acid, 

 and verdigris; mustard, with yellow ochre, and chromate of lead; 

 vinegar, with sulphuric acid, arsenic, and corrosive sublimate; coffee, 

 with roasted acorns, spent tanbark, logwood, mahogany, sawdust, 

 and burnt liver of horses; tea, with a great variety of articles." 



Dr. R. W, Piper, of Chicago, 111., detailing his examinations of 

 various articles, says that he found in oleomargarine "organic sub- 

 stances in the form of muscular and connective tissues, various 

 fungi, and living organisms which have resisted the action of boiling 

 acetic acid, also eggs resembling those of the tapeworm." 



Prof. George A. Mariner, also of Chicago, 111., found that out 

 of fourteen brands of refined sugar twelve contained chloride of tin, 

 an active poison; in syrups made essentially from glucose he found 

 chloride of tin, calcium, iron, magnesia, and in quantities which 

 made them very poi-:onous; he found sugar of lead in vinegar; and 

 lead and copper in pickles; he found alum in baking powder in place 

 of cream of tartar. He says, "I have come to expect adulteration, 



