1066 FOODS AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



The raising of the prohibition was done with much haste as is evinced 

 by the close correspondence between the dates of the report of the com- 

 mission and the date of the ministerial decree. The proposition of M. 

 Griiuaux to mark the distinction between coppered vegetables and 

 those not so treated, by a meaningless combination of words like " a 

 Panglaise," meaningless, that is, in this connection, can scarcely be 

 viewed as a happy one, taken from an ethical standpoint. 



The statement of the canners and others, that if coppered vegeta- 

 bles bore a label announcing that fact in so many words, no sale could 

 be effected, was naive. The whole struggle in France over the copper 

 question may be summed up in a few words. Certain packers of food 

 products wanted to use in preparing their goods a substance which, 

 rightly or wrongly, was viewed by the consumers of these foods with 

 distrust, and, being aware of this fact, petitioned for permission to add 

 this substancejwithout the knowledge of their customers. The Govern- 

 ment, acting upon the counsel of its hygienic advisers refused this per- 

 mission for many years> but finally conceded it, acting, as it appears, 

 altogether upon commercial considerations. The report of the scien- 

 tific commission upon which this license was nominally based is also 

 actuated by this motive, for M. Grimaux states this fact plainly, stat- 

 ing that if it were not for economic considerations his duty as a hygien- 

 ist would lead him to another conclusion. His recommendation that 

 the goods be marked when coppered, though with what is practically 

 an arbitrary sign, does not appear in the ministerial circular, nor does 

 any limiting amount, so that as far as the records accessible show, the 

 French packer is at full liberty to add as much copper as he pleases 

 and without advertising the fact in any way. 



COPPER'GREENING IN BELGIUM. 



In 1883 Belgian packers were prosecuted for coppering vegetables. 1 

 The decision was in favor of the defendants, being in substance that they 

 had not added substances of an injurious nature to the articles of food 

 in question. On ^November 17, 1885, the Belgian-minister of the interior 

 addressed a letter to the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium, ask- 

 ing for a decision as to whether salts of copper occurring in food were 

 injurious. After an exhaustive discussion of the subject the academy 

 came to the conclusion that " compounds of copper are not only useless 

 in foods, but they are injurious." 



COPPER-GREENING IN GERMANY. 



In their anxiety to obtain new outlets for their traffic, Germans have 

 long looked with covetous eyes on the great export trade in preserved 

 vegetables possessed by France, and the repeal of the clause in their 



1 Cited by W. H. Kent in a paper "On the use of copper in foods," report of Brook- 

 lyn Board of Health, 1887, 135. 



