21 



Thirty-odd years ago, when I was a student of medicine, we were taught how to 

 detect frauds regarding the various drugs then in use. It was as much a part of our 

 education in materia medica to know the frauds as the true articles, and it seems 

 to me that the frauds have been multiplying since then with a greater power than 

 ever known in bacterial life. 



We have no preventive laws of importance in our State that I am acquainted with. 

 We endeavored last winter to get through a pure-food bill. It went through the house 

 all right but got lodged somewhere in the senate. We did, however, get through a 

 splendid oleo bill, based largely upon that in operation in Massachusetts, and taking 

 some of the good points from Ohio. This is now in operation in our State and is 

 having a good effect in obliging oleo to be sold imcolored for what it is. 



I can conceive of no more beneficial law than a national food and drug law which 

 would compel a proper branding of all articles of food or drugs that are sold in our 

 markets. It seems to me that these fundamental conditions for the health of the 

 people can not be too closely guarded. Agriculture is said to be the foundation of 

 national prosperity. We do not go to the bottom of it, for food and health are the 

 foundations upon which our whole social structure rests. 



Our cities and t~wus are all beginning to understand the importance of the milk 

 question and are agitating for a proper inspection/ but as yet we have nothing of 

 the kind. Our daily milk supply is adulterated in many ways, to the great detri- 

 ment of infant lii'e, and needs a restraining influence from State authority. 



The following is from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment 

 Station Report for 1887, pages 105, 106: 



IMPERIAL GRANUM. 



CCLXXIX, as described by the proprietor, "Imperial Granum, the Great Medici- 

 nal Food." This justly celebrated dietetic preparation is in composition principally 

 the gluten derived by chemical process from very superior growths of wheat. A 

 solid extract. The invention of an eminent French chemist. It has acquired the 

 reputation of being an incomparable aliment for the growth and protection of 

 infants and children. The salvator for invalids and the aged, etc. 



Analysis. 



The Imperial Granum contains 77.24 per cent of wheat starch with possibly some 

 dextrin. The quantity of dextrin and dextrose is not more than 1.8 per cent. The 

 only wide difference between the figures given above for granum and wheat flour is 

 in the cost per pound. The granum can not be distinguished in chemical composi- 

 tion and properties from wheat flour slightly browned, which cooked as a porridge 

 has long been used and prixed as a food for infants and invalids. 



It does not consist principally of the gluten of wheat, and is in no respect supe- 

 rior as food to good wheat flour. 



