40 COAL-TAR COLORS USED IN FOOD PRODUCTS. 



The definite lesson to be learned from this side-by-side comparison 

 is that these enactments in many cases employed terms so vague and ] 

 indefinite as to permit the use of some bad colors as well as all good ! 

 ones, that is they were not sufficiently definite to exclude all that ' 

 were harmful. 



DEFINITENESS AND DETAIL NECESSARY TO EFFECT QUALITY 



CONTROL. 



This apparent state of confusion in legal enactments that pre- 

 ceded the summer of 1907 was a very strong factor in the formation 

 of the conclusion that in order to be effective any law or regulation 

 dealing with coal-tar colors for use in foods must prohibit every coal- 

 tar color except certain definite specific ones. 



The Austrian laws of September 19, 1895, and of January 22, 1896, 

 provided for quality control by public and other laboratories of the 

 coal-tar colors put upon the market for use in foods; the results of 

 such control, as reported in the Zeitschrift fur Nahrungsmittel- 

 Untersuchung, Hygiene und Waarenkunde, 1896, v. 10, p. 335, are 

 as follows: 



Coloring matters of commerce are mostly mixtures of various coloring matters, a 

 right which manufacturers will not part with; and further, while it is indeed possible 

 to test the coloring matter in substance, it is nevertheless impossible to test it in the 

 very small amounts which are used in the coloring of foodstuffs and to determine 

 with certainty the identity of the color as to whether it is or not one of the permitted 

 colors. 



Of 21 samples of coloring matter examined, 14 were objectionable, partly 

 because of false labeling, or because they were mixtures, partly because they 

 contained poisonous metals," or a forbidden coloring matter. Thus, a so-called "Ever- 

 green" was Naphthol Green B, a poisonous nitroso color; Malachite Green contained 

 zinc; an Acid Magenta and a Rosalin contained traces of copper; Ponceau, Eosin, 

 Brown, and Roccellin contained traces of tin; Orange I and Waterblue contained 

 traces of tin and zinc. The last-named coloring matters were therefore not prepared 

 in proper state of purity. 



The authorities in Vienna examined four and rejected two colors. (Ibid., 1898, 

 p. 107.) 



The Swiss authorities exercised control over colors, after they 

 reached the market, with the result that the authorities in Basle 

 examined ten colors and rejected one. (Hid., 1897, p. 292.} 



These facts, together with the knowledge derived by even the most 

 superficial ocular examination of the 294 specimens received in the 

 summer of 1907, played a very great part in the formation of the con- 

 clusion that control of quality, in order to be even reasonably effec- 

 tive, must be thoroughgoing, and that colors must be excluded from 

 the market until they prove themselves to be clean, rather than 

 permitted promiscuously and then driven out of the market by the 

 authorities if unsuitable. 



The effective quality control of food colors requires careful and 

 searching examination of a kind which can not usually be obtained 



