196 



— '' We propose to pass in review successively every article of food 

 and drink, retracing our steps from time to time, and returning, as we 

 do now, in the case of coffee, to the consideration of articles which 

 have already attracted our attention. In this way visiting town and 

 city, we shall perform the part of a vigilant sanitary police." The 

 ' Lancet' being a periodical exclusively addressed to medical men, is 

 probably seldom if ever seen by the great majority of oUr readers; 

 some account therefore of these papei-s may be of interest to them, the 

 rather because one or two of our British plants are concerned in the 

 matter. 



Coffee is adulterated to an almost incredible extent with the farina 

 of the Graminea?, Leguminosse, potato, burnt sugar to colour and 

 conceal the other adulterations, and with chicory, the root of Cicho- 

 rium Tntybus. The processes of roasting and grinding leave enough 

 of the anatomical structure of vegetable matter to disclose unerringly 

 the adulterations practised. A separate report is devoted to chicory. 



The Chanceller of the Exchequer having thought fit to sanction the 

 mixture of chicory with coffee (a practice which the 'Lancet' severely 

 condemns), Cichorium Intybus is shown to have " qualities nearly re- 

 sembling those of the dandelion," and in fact to have no nutritious 

 properties whatever ; on the contrary, " Taken as coffee by weak sto- 

 machs, it has a tendency to produce drowsiness, a feeling of weight at 

 the stomach, and great indisposition to exertion, headache, diarrhcea." 

 It is remarkable that chicory itself, which is grown largely in York- 

 shire, is subjected to considerable adulterations by the manufacturers. 

 Some of the substances used for this purpose are — carrot, parsnip, 

 mangel-wurzel, beans, roasted corn, an inferior kind of biscuit, made 

 in Whitechapel, expressly to be roasted and ground with coffee and 

 chicory, cloy -biscuits, burnt sugar, called by grocers " black-jack," 

 and red earth. A substance has lately been introduced under the 

 name of coffina ; it is the seed of one of the Leguminosae ; but acorns 

 appear likely to supplant this substance, on account of their very low 

 price. Be it noticed that high-priced coffee is adulterated as well 

 as low-priced, the amount of adulteration depending on nothing but 

 the flexibility of the grocer's conscience; therefore let coffee-drinkers 

 buy cofiee-mills and grind for themselves : this is their best protection. 

 Where this is not done, the following may be useful as a rough test of 

 the purity of coffee : — "When cold water is poured on genuine ground 

 coffee, the liquid acquires colour only very slowly and gradually : the 

 colour is never very deep even after prolonged maceration, and the 

 transparency of the water is scarcely at all affected." Adulterated 



