RECOMMENDATIONS BY COLOR INDUSTRIES. 47 



CONCLUSIONS. 



Applying the Schacherl rule, " Other groups which contain harmful 

 merely suspicious colors must be absolutely excluded," to this 

 able and assuming that all entries in columns 1 and 3 shall be 

 egarded as rendering such colors as " harmful or merely suspicious," 

 b will be found that only one group, namely the Stilbene group, 

 .vould be permitted under that rule; further, that this rule would 

 idmit 17 colors, not one of which has been reported on in the litera- 

 ure as to its physiological action. This state of affairs tends to em- 

 >hasize the difficulties in the way of any generalization which will be 

 afe so far as public health is concerned and fair to those who use 

 ood colors for admittedly legitimate purposes and to make the 

 ollowing recommendation appears to be the only satisfactory way 

 f solving the food-color problem : 



Although it would be possible to draw quite reliable conclusions as to the advisa- 

 ility of employing certain colors for food products on the basis of their chemical 

 onstituency, the mode of their manufacture and of the ingredients used in same, 

 evertheless, I think that by far the safest way would be on the one side to force 

 le dealers of colors intended for food products to sell only such colors with which 

 xhaustive and careful physiological tests have been made by experienced and espe- 

 ially impartial and thoroughly reliable people, thereby establishing their harmless- 

 ess beyond a doubt. On the other hand, the manufacturers and canners of food 

 roducts of any description should be forced to purchase and use only those colors 

 r hich they are sure have been submitted to such careful tests as have been described 



and by these tests found to be harmless. (Lieber, The use of coal-tar colors in food 



products, 1904, p. 150.) 



This view is confirmed by Santori l (MoleschotV s Untersuchungen, 

 1895, Vol. XV, p. 57} , who says: 



From all these experiments it follows that it is impossible, as some have desired to 

 do, to conclude simply from the chemical composition and constitution whether any 

 given coal-tar dye is poisonous or nonpoisonous. Thus Indulin belongs to the same 

 group aa Printing Blue and Methyl Violet to the same group as does Acid Violet; 

 therefore each individual coal-tar dye must be separately examined, and it is only 

 by this laborious method that the use of all really poisonous coal-tar dyes will be 

 prevented. 



VII. RECOMMENDATIONS MADE BY UNITED STATES COLOR 

 INDUSTRIES AND TRADES TO THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRI- 

 CULTURE. 



Prior to the issuance of any regulations, the commission on rules 

 and regulations for the food and drugs act, June 30, 1906, held meet- 

 ings in New York City during September of that year. The steno- 

 graphic reports of those meetings, and the briefs filed, in so far as they 



1 Santori examined 15 different blue and violet dyes on dogs by the mouth and hypodermically. Of 

 these 15, 8 are poisonous by the mouth and 7 are nonpoisonous by the mouth. He found Indulin to be pois- 

 onous and Printing Blue to be nonpoisonous; Acid Violet to be nonpoisonous and Methyl Violet to be 

 poisonous. 



