INTRODUCTION. 11 



Intermediate between these two extremes we find the prohibition of 

 a greater number than two, or of all the members of this class except 

 certain specified colors, and even here with the restriction that they 

 shall be used only for certain legitimate food-coloring purposes. 



It would be desirable to have a number of coal-tar colors of estab- 

 lished harmlessness specifically permitted, particularly if the number 

 be sufficient to meet all the legitimate demands arising in the food- 

 coloring art. To prohibit only specified coal-tar colors and, by 

 implication, to permit all the rest of this class, would allow the 

 unrestricted use of newly discovered colors, and all other coal-tar 

 colors not examined as to their effect on health. A limited fist of 

 permitted coal-tar colors which would make the use of aU coal-tar 

 colors outside of the permitted list illegal would properly protect 

 the health and could work no substantial hardship upon those 

 engaged in food coloring. Any such hardship would be avoided by 

 providing that if it is shown that none of the colors of the permitted 

 list meets certain legitimate requirements and that coal-tar colors 

 outside the permitted list are capable of satisfying this need and are 

 in and of themselves harmless the permitted list can be expanded by 

 the proper authorities to meet additional needs or growing require- 

 ments without exposing the public health to any risk. 



NUMBER OF COLORS PERMITTED. 



It will be shown in the following pages that in the summer of 1907 

 there were on the market of the United States 80 different chemical 

 individuals, or so-called coal-tar colors, offered for the coloring of 

 food. It has been known since 1888 that it is unsafe to attempt 

 to predict the harmfulness or the harmlessness of coal-tar colors by 

 inference or analogy; therefore an ideally perfect permitted list should 

 contain only such colors as have each been examined physiologically, 

 separately, and specifically, and their harmlessness determined by 

 actual test. Out of the 80 colors referred to 30 had not been exam- 

 ined at all, so far as the literature shows, and therefore their harm- 

 lessness is certainly open to question; 26 had been examined physi- 

 ologically, and the published accounts with respect to their harm- 

 lessness or their harmfulness are in each case contradictory; on 8 

 none but adverse reports were to be found in literature, leaving 

 only 16 out of 80 colors on the market which had been established 

 with more or less certainty as harmless that is, the users of these 8 

 colors were deliberately taking chances with the public health, since 

 the harmful nature of those 8 had for a long time past been known to 

 those conversant with such subjects; the use of the 26 doubtful 

 colors is more defensible than the use of the 8 known to be harmful. 

 Out of the 30 of whose action nothing was known it can not be said 



