Dec. 29, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



881 



little more conversant with it and could have read it more 

 intelligently that it might have done more credit to this 

 foreigner wlio evidently has given this subject more thought 

 and more close and careful study than the majority of Amer- 

 icans; and I most heartily concur in the motion and if there 

 is any way to add emphasis to it or to make stronger I say 

 Amen. 



Dr. Bohrer — We want to tender through Mr. Titoff to 

 the Russian Government a vote of thanks. 



Mr. Whitcomb — The yield of wax reported here is ex- 

 traordinary, even the honey-flow is extraordinary. We fail 

 always to get wax and honey at the same time. I would like 

 to hear from the gentleman how they can do that. I am 

 finding no fault with the report. I do not want to make 

 any objections to it but it does seem to me to be a terribly 

 strong statement. 



The President put the motion, which on a vote having 

 been taken was declared carried. 



On motion, Mr. Titoff was invited to speak as an hon- 

 orary member. 



At this stage the President introduced to the audience 

 Miss Ethel Acklin, who favored the audience with a solo, 

 entitled "The Hum of the Bees in the Apple-Tree Bloom." 



Mr. Stilson — -We were appointed this morning to visit 

 some of the representatives of the foreign nations on the 

 Fair grounds. We, this afternoon, called upon the repre- 

 sentatives of eighteen or twenty of the foreign nations. We 

 were very cordially received and some of them promised to 

 be here this evening. Our Russian friend, Mr. Titoff did 

 not talk a great deal with them but our French friend, Mr. 

 Dadant, found opportunity to do a great deal of French 

 talking. If any of those representatives are here this even- 

 ing we would like to have them come forward or if they 

 come in during the evening they will be presented to the 

 audience by Mr. Dadant. Some of the foreign commissioners 

 who were here a week or so ago have left the city so that 

 we did not find some of the men we were after. 



The President called on Prof. E. N. Eaton, of Chicago, 

 to address the convention on 



FOOD FRAUDS AND FOOD OFFICIALS. 



Prof. Eaton — I regret very much I could not give this 

 subject the attention which the importance of it and my 

 interest in it would warrant, but if I had not been able to 

 do a thing except come here this evening I should have done 

 so to show my interest in this cause. It is a matter of pride 

 with me that I have attended conventions of bee-keepers 

 every year I believe for ten years, beginning in Minnesota 

 and the Chicago-Northwestern Association in Chicago and 

 two or three of the National conventions, and I want to 

 say although I never owned a bee in my life I have received 

 a great deal of benefit from every convention I have attended, 

 not alone as a chemist, but I believe that meeting with you 

 has brought me nearer to nature where I believe a man gets 

 his best enjoyment and happiness; I have also been bene- 

 fitted as a food chemist. Every food chemist should become 

 acquainted with every industry manufacturing or placing 

 food on the market. Unless he becomes familiar with the 

 technical aspects of the question he cannot correctly interpret 

 his own analysis. If the food commissioners and chemists 

 had attended any one of your National, State or local meet- 

 ings they would never have made the statements which they 

 have made, and the falsehoods which they have distributed 

 all over the country in regard to the adulteration of comb 

 honey and the manufacture of honey by • feeding bees glu- 

 cose. 



And this brings me to the subject of my paper proper. 

 The subject is a rather odd subject for a chemist or one 

 engaged in just the opposite sort of work from this. We 

 are supposed to hunt out food frauds ; we are working in 

 the dark always. The chemist that manufactures is always 

 working in the light while we are looking for adulteration. 

 This time I want to speak to you about adulteration which 

 does not exist. I want to speak of some of the crimes com- 

 mitted by food commissioners and chemists in the name and 

 pay of the people. 



It is certainly a pleasure to meet again with the bee- 

 keepers and talk over with them subjects about which you 

 are naturally interested. It is with no little pride that I 

 have scarcely missed attending a convention of bee-keepers. 



And from these conventions I have always derived some 

 good, not alone in bringing me nearer nature in whose at- 

 mosphere I believe man obtains his highest enjoyment but 

 in widening my knowledge of my own field of work — food 



chemistry — and the broader and higher aspirations it leads 

 to, the protection of the public from impure and adulterated 

 food. 



The food chemist must understand the technical side of 

 every food industry or he will not be capable of correctly 

 interpreting his own analysis. If many food commissioners, 

 chemists and' even government chemists had received a train- 

 ing in bee-keepers' conventions, they would not have made 

 so many reckless, untrue and hurtfuL statements regarding 

 the adulteration of comb honey and the fraudulent honey 

 obtained by feeding glucose to bees, and this brings me to 

 the subject of my paper, a rather odd one for a food official, 

 that is, the crimes committed by food commissioners and 

 chemists in the name of public service and in the pay of the 

 people. 



The nature of their crimes is the wide-spread publica- 

 tions of adulterations which do not exist, to the detriment 

 of parties handling legitimate goods. I may illustrate the 

 statement by referring to incidents and facts which have 

 come under my observation as a food chemist. First, in 

 England, it was so widely spread that calves' brains were 

 used to adulterate milk, and tests to detect them were given 

 in all the early text-books of chemistry. 



Chalk in milk and sand in sugar are other food frauds 

 • — to use the term in a new sense — which are ultimately in- 

 dispensable to the editor of the comic magazine. 



All the old food laws contain a long list of impossible 

 things to find in vinegar, candy and sugars, and it must be 

 the form of a galvanized stomach indeed who would glance 

 at this list and not thank God for the food commissioner. 



Lately we hear a good deal about harmful materials 

 found in candy, and every little while a newspaper breaks 

 out with a case of poison produced by eating these toothsome 

 sweets. 



The National Confectioners' Association, through their 

 secretary, makes it a point to investigate every such case, 

 and so far he has not found a bit of truth in any of them. 



Then there is the wide-spread falsehood of the whole- 

 sale adulteration of honey produced by feeding bees glucose, 

 and the still worse fraud of cheating the bees entirely and 

 manufacturing honey, comb and all. All bee-keepers know 

 how absurd fhese statements are, and how utterly impossible 

 it would be to make them were the authors of the statement 

 familiar with the manufacture of genuine honey. But one 

 commission after another contributes an interesting article 

 upon this subject to his local press and it travels from ocean 

 to ocean. But while a food commissioner who is not ex- 

 pected to be a food scientist may make a blunder of this kind, 

 occasionally, especially as it has passed current for so many 

 years, it is less excusable in the chemist, and to a chemist 

 must be attributed the first wide-spread publicity of the he. 

 It was as long ago as ISSl that an article appeared in the 

 Pooular Science Monthly bv the now renowned chief chemist 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture, from whicn 

 I quote the last paragraph : 



"In commercial honey which is entirely free from bee 

 mediation the comb is made from paraffin and filled with 

 pure glucose by appropriate machinery." 



Later when the paragraph had attained the most wide- 

 spread publicity and the bee-keeper questioned his right to 

 make the statements— the author explamed that they were 

 meant for a "scientific pleasantry," and even accused the bee- 

 keeper of being dull in comprehension in not quickly seeing 

 the joke. .... , 



The bee-keeper could not question the spirit or mood 

 in which the article was written, but held that it was a sad 

 subject to joke upon, and it is probably a source of regret 

 to the chemist that his humor was not discovered by the 

 hundreds of papers which up to this very day reiterate it. 



But the statement was made, and its trail of trade dam- 

 age is still in its wake. 



What is the cause of these unwise statements? hirst, 

 perhaps desire for publicity. Second, to alarm the public to 

 a degree of food adulteration. Third, thorough ignoranct 



Sometimes it seems that a little exaggeration .of the adul- 

 teration of food is not an unmixed evil, as the public will 

 awake to the importance of protection themselves, yet, trutn 

 is the better guide, and especially where falsehood injures 

 laro-e industries as it has in honey, candy, flour and other 

 food stuffs. . E. N. Eaton. 



Mr. York— Dr. Eaton is the chemist of the food com- 

 mission for Illinois, and he has attended a number of our 

 conventions in Chicago and has talked to us on these 

 subjects in which he is so deeply interested. I am glad, for 

 one we have such a chemist connected with the food com- 



