April 15, . 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



507 



schools of Spain worked over and added to 

 the conglomeration of unclassified theories 

 and facts from which the various depart- 

 ments of science have been developed. 

 Feudalism, whatever its faults, had averted 

 the chaos which for a time threatened to fol- 

 low the death of Charlemagne and was 

 fostering and augmenting personal honor, 

 the spirit of independence and the love of 

 liberty. Of course, no general laws were 

 possible or necessary at this time, but we 

 find regulations enforced in some cities for- 

 bidding the adulteration of wine and beer. 

 Of all foods these were the most important 

 from, a commercial standpoint and were 

 most commonly adulterated. Since then 

 there has never been a time when their 

 adulteration was not restricted by legis- 

 lation and each succeeding period increased 

 the list of foods thus protected until the 

 entire field was covered. 



With the dawn of the thirteenth century 

 we find eastern Europe greatly advanced 

 in education and civilization. The Cru- 

 sades have broadened the minds of their 

 participants. -Manufactures have become 

 more diversified, commerce has made a cor- 

 responding growth, and a spirit of explora- 

 tion has sprung up, opening new lands to 

 the advancing civilization. In England 

 and in France the common people have 

 been given a voice in the legislative bodies, 

 and it is worthy of note that contempo- 

 raneously with this popular quickening and 

 awakening, or as a direct and immediate 

 sequence, the protection of foods was made 

 a subject of frequent legal enactments. 



In 1202, thirteen years before the sign- 

 ing of the Magna Charta, the ' Assize of 

 Bread ' was enacted in England. In 1266, 

 the year following the formation of the 

 House of Commons, a statute was enacted 

 forbidding the sale of unwholesome wine 

 and meat. This law was in force more 

 than four hundred years, when it gave place 

 to a more general law. In 1286 the ' As- 



size of Bread ' was repealed by a more com- 

 prehensive act known as the ' Statute of 

 Assize.' This statute was intended to con- 

 trol the size and weight of the loaf, not to 

 prevent adulteration. Its effect was natu- 

 rally to increase adulteration at first, but 

 additions were made from time to time, as 

 their necessity became apparent, to include 

 all frauds in bread. 



During the latter part of this century 

 the adulteration of beer was forbidden in 

 France, and in London it was unlawful 

 to adulterate spices by substitution with 

 foreign matter or inferior goods, or by in- 

 creasing their weight with water. 



In the fourteenth century numerous in- 

 cidents are recorded of punishment by pil- 

 lory for short weight and for selling bad 

 bread and putrid meat. Early in the fif- 

 teenth century Henry V. issued a procla- 

 mation against the adulteration and mixing 

 of wine, prescribing the pillory for offenders. 

 In France it was decreed in 1336 that adul- 

 teration and exhausted drugs should not be 

 offered for sale nor used in the preparation 

 of any compounded article. The police 

 departments of French cities adopted food 

 and sanitary regulations, and in 1382 the 

 Prevost of Paris declared it illegal for millers 

 to employ cheaper cereals for admixture 

 with their flour, a form of adulteration most 

 difficult to deal with and most dangerous 

 to commerce at the present day. Fourteen 

 years later the artificial coloring of butter 

 was forbidden as well as the mixture of old 

 butter with new. ■ A few years later it was 

 ordered in Paris that butter should not be 

 sold in the same shop with any article hav- 

 ing an offensive odor. 



In Germany at this time the food supply 

 was controlled in the various cities by trade 

 organizations, which seem to have had full 

 power to adopt standards, pass judgment 

 and punish offenders. These guilds, as 

 they were called, existed in a large number 

 of trades and regulated the workmanship 



