INTKODUCTION. 13 



was actually preferable to the permitted yellow wholly and solely 

 because of its superior fastness to light. 



The blue has been criticized because it is not of the proper shade 

 to permit of its use in the bluing of sugar, but the substitute offered 

 therefor has not been supported by its sponsors in a way to indicate 

 that a defect of serious magnitude exists. On the grounds of suffi- 

 ciency and of efficiency the list of permitted colors selected appears 

 to have been justified by the absence of any real or substantial com- 

 plaint against them, on either or both of these grounds, during a 

 period of more than three years. 



None of the seven permitted colors is patented; their manufacture 

 and their purification are open to all, and none of the 80 colors on 

 the market in the summer of 1907, with perhaps one exception, had 

 been discovered since 1891 ; in other words, the advances in the coal- 

 tar industry from 1891 to 1907 had added nothing to the colors 

 serviceable to the art of food coloring. 



The list of colors permitted in Food Inspection Decision No. 76 

 embraces, therefore, a sufficient number of colors for all legitimate 

 food-coloring purposes, the coloring of fats, oils, butter, etc., excepted, 

 for which no suitable color had been examined and reported in the 

 literature as being harmless and fit for use in foods ; they can be made 

 by any one; no one can have a monopoly in any one of them by 

 virtue of patents; any competent maker can make all or any of 

 them and purify them to the required degree of cleanliness. The 

 standards growing out of the control exercised by the Department of 

 Agriculture are such as to insure that the colors used for food-coloring 

 purposes possess a proper degree of cleanliness and such a degree of 

 cleanliness is commercially feasible and is a commercial reality. 



The policy adopted in this respect is therefore justified not only 

 from the viewpoint of the history of the attempts on the part of 

 various governments to control the quality of food colors, but also 

 by the results actually obtained by its adoption. This policy of 

 restricting food colors to certain chemical individuals and demand- 

 ing that those possess certain qualities is in complete harmony with 

 the following suggestion made to the commission on rules and regu- 

 lations under the food and drugs act, at its hearing in New York, 

 in September, 1906. 



Any kind of a harmless color should be permitted, provided it is not a color generally 

 known to be poisonous, or generally found to be poisonous, or one that may be almost 

 impossible to be produced without containing some poison within itself when finished 

 and ready for use. Coal-tar colors, as a class, should not be prohibited, but all those 

 coal-tar colors generally found to be poisonous, or which are hard to produce without 

 containing some poisonous properties when ready for use, should be forbidden the 

 privilege of being used, or offered for sale for use in food. 



Under the provisions of section 2, we have this to recommend to the commission, 

 that every person selling or using a coal-tar color in food or drink, should be required 



