1072 FOODS AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



copper salt might have different action from another, he would say that he and pre- 

 vious investigators had tried many salts, chlorid, sulphate, nitrate, acetate, buty- 

 rate, oleate, stearate, succinate, albumiuate and others, and upon the whole the 

 results agreed very well. He also stated that at one time Galippe had taken the 

 trouble, to convince an American who cherished a conviction that copper glycero- 

 phosphate was specially injurious, of cooking a complicated mixture of egga and 

 milk in copper vessels, allowing to stand and finally eating the unappetizing green 

 mass. No injury had resulted. As to the idea that there might be a cooperative 

 action between the products of putrefaction and copper salts, this had been expressed 

 by Dr. Pasch in 1850. In his opinion, this was not impossible. In the literature 

 there were cases on record which were difficult of explanation without assuming an 

 occasional abnormal toxicity for copper salts. These isolated and difficultly explain- 

 able cases, however, should not deter from taking profit by the results of exact 

 laboratory experience. He reiterated his conviction that there were no hygienic 

 grounds against the toleration of 25 mg of copper to the kilo of preserves. 



Sendtner recalled the fact that the Italian Government had declared lOOmg allowable. 



Halenke remarked, after the farther explanation by Lehmann, that he thought the 

 limit could be allowed, but only for preserved foods. 



Hilger said that it was time to settle the matter. 



Horman thought that it was of economic importance for the canning industry that 

 the question be finally settled. 



A discussion now followed as to the exact form the resolution fixing 

 a maximum limit should take. It was closed by the presiding officer 

 calling upon Mayrhofer to present the resolution. Mayrhofer moved: 



"Judging by experience an amount of copper in preserved foods not exceeding 25 

 milligrams per kilogram is not to be viewed as injurious to health." 



The resolution was unanimously passed. 



In how far the views of the Bavarian chemists were biased on this 

 point by their very evident desire to promote German commerce is a 

 question hard to decide this side of the water. At all events, their 

 reports give the use of copper in foods a decided "whitewashing." 



The Brunswick case alluded to occurred in 1891. l A Brunswick 

 preserving firm used copper sulphate to green peas, and the authori- 

 ties instituted legal proceedings against it. In the preliminary pro- 

 ceedings, among other testimony it was stated that an adult would 

 consume at a meal about 170 grams of peas, corresponding, in the case 

 of the goods in question, to about 6.5 mg of copper at the highest, and 

 that in this quantity copper as copper sulphate would not be at all 

 dangerous, even in repeated doses. It was also stated that physicians 

 frequently administer copper sulphate as an emetic in doses of 200 mg, 

 and that the pharmacopeia gave a gram as the maximum dose. As a 

 result of this evidence the defendant was acquitted, the court stating 

 that he had but exercised the ordinary mercantile right of beautifying 

 (herausputzen) his goods. 



COPPER-GREENING IN ITALY. 



In 1892 the Italian Government 2 amended the food laws so that the 

 section which had hitherto read that preserved goods containing more 



1 Cheni. Ztg., 1891, 15, 49. - Ztschr. Nahr. Hyg., 1892, 6, 269. 



