124 ELEMENTARY BIOLOGY 



The first regulations adopted by governments for the control of 

 the manufacture and sale of food products had to do with commer- 

 cial frauds the selling of adulterated or misbranded foods. These 

 regulations mean, in effect, that when a person offers to sell you sugar, 

 you should not be obliged to carry your own chemical equipment to 

 the market, and test the wares against substitutions or adulterations. 



As the scientists' knowledge about the relation of food to 

 bodily health and efficiency increased, and as our civilization 

 separated people more and more from the sources of their 

 everyday needs, it became necessary for the public, through 

 its official agents, to extend the protection of the buyer still 

 farther. It is not sufficient that we get full measure. It is 

 not sufficient that we get goods correctly labeled. We must 

 be assured that what is offered us is suitable for our purposes, 

 and that it is harmless. 



If the chemists or other scientists can discover cheap substitutes 

 for the familiar fats and carbohydrates and proteins, they are doing 

 mankind a service ; they are reducing the cost of living. But we do 

 not care to have the dishonest manufacturer or dealer get all the 

 benefit of these discoveries, while the rest of us go on working as 

 hard as ever, and getting as little out of life as before. 



156. Food dangers. In more recent years a new set of prob- 

 lems has arisen in connection with the protection of the public 

 food supply. This has to do with the sale of food that may be 

 decomposed and thus unfit for food, or with the sale of food 

 that has been made dangerous by contamination with disease- 

 breeding bacteria. The former is illustrated in the canning and 

 packing industries ; the latter in the commerce in fresh milk, 

 meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, and so forth. 



In the canning and packing of meats, fruits, vegetables, fish, 

 and so on, food that is not strictly fresh has often been put 

 into the containers, with its odor concealed by the use of spices 

 or other flavoring substances. Decomposed food is a real 

 source of danger, for it contains, in addition to the proteins, 



