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tant drugs. I have bought vanilla from different drug houses and have often been 

 obliged to return the same, owing to its inferior quality. Opium of a pure quality 

 is especially hard to get. The producers often exhaust the pure gum with alcohol, 

 making a strong tincture, which is sold on the market, and then triturate the bulk of 

 the opium with poppy leaves and put it on the market as first-class gum opium, 

 which the jobbers sell as such, yet purchased by them as second-class. Vanilla is 

 treated in the same way. 



As individual dealers we can not make the necessary investigations, owing to the 

 expense. 



Food adulterations are plentiful; impiire cheese, butter, preserves, baking pow- 

 ders, ice cream, vinegar, and many other articles are passed upon the consumer as 

 pure. I have investigated some cheese from my grocer and found it so ingeniously 

 adulterated as to deceive the ordinary buyer. 



From Otto A. Hartwig, M. D., St. Louis, Mo. : 



All powdered drugs are more or less adulterated with inert substances, such as 

 flaxseed meal, fine sawdust, etc., unless obtained from some reliable dealer, regard- 

 less of cost. Concerning children's food I am of the opinion that the patent and 

 proprietary articles sold as such are mostly vile compositions of starch, sugar, malt, 

 and gums, and at best they are old and stale when procured by the customer. Fre- 

 quently they are full of vermin, as any druggist can tell, and often by his own 

 experience, when the customer returns them. I have seen some of them actually 

 alive w^ith insects and worms when the stuff had been freshly procured from the 

 wholesale house. 



From Mr. John Wliittaker, a large packer in St. Louis, Mo. : 



I am credibly informed that some, if not a great deal, of the so-called "refined" 

 lard of commerce does not contain a particle of lard and is made entirely from cot- 

 ton-seed oil and acid-bleached or washed tallow. It is when cool almost odorless, 

 but I presume when put in the pan and warmed it would more nearly indicate its 

 character. If these statements to me are true, I think it is a shame that they should 

 use the word "lard" at all. 



From Hon. W. S. Cowherd, mayor, Kansas City, Mo.: 



As to butter adulterants, I have discovered nothing which has not been already 

 published in the bulletin of the Division of Chemistry of the Department of Agri- 

 culture. These adulterations consist chiefly of coloring matters (such as turmeric) 

 and foreign fats. The law taxing oleomargarin, butterin, etc., has resulted in 

 causing all large manufacturers to label their products and has largely diminished 

 the sale of artificial butter under the name of the genuine article. 



A good deal of the " creamery" butter sold here, however, is what is known as 

 "renovated," i. e., made from old, inferior, and rancid products which are washed 

 to rid them of the free butyric acid and colored uniformly with turmeric, and treated 

 with boric acid and like antizymotic chemicals, and put on the market as creamery 

 butter. 



The most common form of adulteration of milk practiced here, as elsewhere, is the 

 removal of cream or the addition of water, or both. Formerly, I have found cane 

 sugar (added to increase the specific gravity) and sodium bicarbonate (to produce 

 froth and neutralize acidity), together with annotto, as coloring matter. I have also 

 found in samples starch and boric acid, and in a few cases salicylic acid. These 

 latter forms of adulterations are becoming rare in this city, owing to the very heavy 

 penalty. 



The infants' foods sold here are all proprietary articles, sold in closed packages, 

 and, however their physiological effects may differ from those claimed for them, they 

 could not under our city laws be deemed adulterated. 



As to pharmaceutical preparations, although hardly in the line of my work, a 



