OLEOMARGARINE AND BUTTERINE. 23 



hours longer than samples of pure dairy butter that were similarly treated. This is not the re- 

 sult of one experiment, but of many, and in some cases the sham butter retained its form and 

 consistency for two hours or more after the genuine article had dissolved. I must refer you 

 to the report for a more detailed description of these interesting experiments, and only desire 

 to say that as the result of our investigations we find that these artificial butters are unwhole- 

 some upon four different grounds : 



4< First On account of their indigestibility. 



" Second In insolubility when made of raw animal fats. 



"Third On account of the strong probability, amounting to a moral certainty, that the 

 bacteria contained in the raw animal fat (where the fat comes from animals that have died 

 without the intervention of the butcher) are not destroyed by the processes of manufacture, 

 and that disease may ensue from its use as human food. 



" Fourth The strong probability that these counterfeit butters, when manufactured by 

 unskilled and unscientific workmen, contain ingredients that are deleterious to public health." 



"We show also in our report," continued the commissioner, "that oil made from the 

 bodies of horses, dogs, and other animals can be so deodorized as to remove all offensiveness, 

 and be made tasteless, and, thus disguised, the most expert chemist cannot tell whether it came 

 from an animal that died of disease or by the hands of the butcher. An eminent chemist who 

 experimented with lard made of fat taken by his own hands from the body of a hog that was 

 suffering from cholera, and with that of a healthy hog that was killed in his presence, officially 

 reported to the department : ' I am not able to distinguish the lard made from the healthy hog 

 from that made from the hog that was suffering with cholera.' It has been established by 

 the testimony given by oleomargarine manufacturers before the Senate committee that the 

 oleomargarine processes use no heat greater than 140 degrees the majority seldom use over 

 no degrees while chemists declare that bacteria existing in animal matter cannot be de- 

 stroyed by heat of less than 212 degrees. This I mention as a proof that where diseased fat 

 is used, as it undoubtedly is in some instances, there is imminent danger of disease. The 

 competition in the manufacture of these counterfeits, and the low price at which they are now 

 selling, are apt to prompt many unscrupulous manufacturers to make use of the fat of animals 

 who die in transit or of disease, and which are cheap ; and thus you see all who spread these 

 Counterfeits over their bread are endangering their health. 



"One of the arguments used by the manufacturers to prove the wholesomeness of their 

 products was the approval they received when Mege's invention was first introduced from the 

 French health authorities. This shred of consolation has been recently withdrawn from them, 

 the French Government having lately revoked this approval and pronounced oleomargarine 

 indigestible." 



"The manufacturers of oleomargarine," said a prominent member of the Butter and Cheese 

 Exchange, "claim that their product is wholesome, and that it is practically the same as nat- 

 ural butter. That claim was specifically made before the health committee of the Legislature 

 that investigated the subject in 1884, and I was present at some of the sittings at which the 

 the testimony proved that the claim was as fraudulent as oleomargarine itself. Here is the 

 testimony of Charles Moses, of No. 41 First Street this city, who was a laborer in an oleomar- 

 garine factory on Grove Street. His duty was to pack the product in tubs. This factory was 

 one of those in which imitation roll butter is made. The witness described the process of 

 packing, which had to be done by hand, and being asked what effect this had on his hands 

 replied : 



" ' It made holes in them, and they began to get sorer and sorer, and I finally lost a nail. 

 The stuff" eat right through to the bone. My hands swelled up, and the stuff that dripped 

 through from the floor above that on which I was working wore holes in my clothes, and that 

 on the floor eat into my boots.' This witness said that in consequence of injuries received in 

 this way he had to go under treatment at Bellevue Hospital. He was severely cross-examined 



