CHAPTER IX 



Adulteration and Oleomargarine 



adulteration of foods 



The adulteration of dairy products is only a special phase 

 of the adulteration of food products in general. In dairy 

 products adulteration is comparatively simple and in these 

 the evil has therefore been probably more glaring than in 

 many other foods. Before the enactment of our dairy laws 

 and the use of the Babcock test milk was frequently diluted 

 with water. This was the earliest form of dairy adultera- 

 tion and has been practised by many a dairyman and dairy- 

 woman in the centuries that have gone by. The manu- 

 facture of " full cream cheese " from skim milk, the filling 

 of cheese with lard, the substitution of oleomargarine for 

 butter and the use of deleterious preservatives in renovat- 

 ing rancid and deteriorated butter, have also been more or 

 less generally practised in America and Europe. " The fol- 

 lowing list 1 of the most common adulterants met with in 

 the principal food products is compiled from the State 

 Board of Health, the returns of the English Inland Revenue 

 Department, and of the Report of the Municipal Labora- 

 tory of Paris " : 



1 Report of U. S. Commissioner of Internal Revenue for 1888, p. 

 clxxxvi. 



210 [434 



