United States Department of Agriculture, 



BUREAU OF CHEMISTRY Circular No. 15. 

 H. W. WILEY, Chief. 



RESULTS OF BORAX EXPERIMENT. ' 



The bulletin of the Bureau of Chemistry, No. 84, containing the first 

 report on the influence of preservatives, coloring matter, and other sub- 

 stances added to foods, on health and digestion, contains several hun- 

 dred pages. Under existing law no more than 1,000 copies of any 

 bulletin containing more than 100 pages can be published. The edition 

 above-named, therefore, will be sufficient to supply only the demands 

 of libraries and a very limited number of specialists engaged in similar 

 investigations. For this reason it is advisable, to prepare in a condensed 

 form a statement of some of the principal points considered in Bulletin 

 84 for more general distribution. The work of which the following digest 

 is presented was undertaken in accordance with the authority conferred 

 by Congress upon the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the influence 

 of various substances added to foods upon health and digestion. The 

 exact wording of the act is as follows: 



To investigate the character of proposed food preservatives and coloring matters 

 to determine their relation to digestion and health and to establish principles 

 which should guide their use. 



The necessity for an investigation of this kind is found in the very 

 general use of certain chemical compounds for preserving foods, and 

 also in the very common use of certain coloring matters for imparting 

 fco foods a tint resembling that of nature, which the foods may have lost, 

 or of producing certain colors in food products which are attractive to 

 fce eye of the consumer. 



The use of preservatives in food products is as old as civilization, and 

 there is no occasion in these investigations for extending the scope of 

 the authority given to the study of the long-established preservative 

 agents. Moreover, these preservative agents which have been so long 

 in use are condimentary in character and reveal themselves at once by 

 taste or odor to the consumer. The more important of these common 

 and long-established preservatives are salt, sugar, vinegar, and wood 

 smoke. Alcohol has also been long used as a food preservative, but 

 does not rank in antiquity and in generality of use with those just 

 mentioned. 



One of the chief characteristics of the modern chemical preservative 

 is that it is often almost without taste or odor, and for this reason its 

 presence in a food product, unless specifically proclaimed, would not 



1 Digest of Bulletin No. 84, giving the plan of work and conclusions as to 

 effects of boric acid and borax on digestion and health. 



