ADULTERATION OF FOOD AND MEDICINE 295 



that sold in the United States. Vaiighan, to be conservative, 

 places it at ten per cent. As the annual food supply amounts 

 to four billion five hundred million dollars, we pay four 

 hundred and fifty million dollars for fraudulent products. As 

 a result of the enforcement of Michigan's excellent pure food 

 laws. Inspector Bennett says, there has been at least seventy 

 five per cent improvement ; and that more than sixteen miUion 

 dollars is annually saved at an expense of only twenty thou- 

 sand dollars per year. Vaughan says, ''When the flesh of dis- 

 eased animals and substances which have undergone putre- 

 factive decomposition, can be doctored up, and preserved by 

 the addition of such agents as formaldehyde, it is time to 

 demand restrictive measures." 



Many analyses have been made in recent years, and some 

 of the pul)lished results are satisfactory, others tend to make 

 us doubt the dealers : as when eleven out of forty five samples 

 of coffee are impure, forty six out of forty nine jams; when out 

 of five hundred and seventy four samples, forty one and a half 

 per cent are adulterated. Judas betrays his Lord at the com- 

 munion table, even now, when for the unfermented wine, he 

 gives a weak solution of salicylic acid, flavored with grape 

 juice. Flour, butter, and cheese are the products protected 

 by government, and it is only a short time since there were 

 more than eleven states having effective food laws, and a few 

 more had some statutes not well enforced. 



Dr. Wiley, in Leslie's Weekly, writing on the action of 

 preservatives, says that: ''WTiile as poisons in food, they are 

 not powerful enough to produce death, they act on the organs 

 of the body, gradually reducing their vitality, and finally 

 endangering the health of the subject." Dr. Carl Kleineberger, 

 of Germany, found that even small doses of salicylates gave 

 rise to the urinary phenomena of nephritis, and also desquama- 

 tive catarrh of the entire urinary tract. A long continued 

 course of treatment for rheumatic trouble with salicylic acid, 

 or salicylate of soda, will convince any observant phj^sician 

 that it impairs digestion, and causes derangement of the kid- 

 neys, unless quite an interim is given betw^een periods of dosage, 

 for the stomach and kidneys to resume their normal functions, 

 showing that daily rations of salicylic acid are not desirable. 



