NOVEMBEB 6, 190S] 



SCIENCE 



637 



drugs, used in illegal medicinal prepara- 

 tions; artificial silk, often substituted for 

 true silk, and so on. These products prop- 

 erly iised are of great benefit to mankind, 

 but altogether too often they have been 

 parties to frauds and have thereby gained 

 bad repute. 



The extent to Avhich adulteration is prac- 

 tised to-day is certainly cause for alarm, 

 although too often the matter is overlooked 

 or considered only from the humorous 

 standpoint. The man who milks the cow 

 with the iron tail, like the boy who steals 

 watermelons, is looked upon as having 

 perpetrated a good joke on the community, 

 when in reality he is committing a criminal 

 offense. All those who manufacture or 

 knowingly sell adulterated products should 

 be regarded as a menace to the welfare of 

 the community, whether or not they are so 

 declared by the laws of the land in which 

 they live. If the article is merely fraudu- 

 lent and causes no injury to health, the 

 offender belongs in the same class with 

 those who cheat in weight and measure and 

 with common thieves; if, however, it is a 

 menace to the safety or health of the com- 

 munity, he is several degrees lower in the 

 moral scale. 



The evil is not one which corrects itself, 

 but, like other crimes, calls for vigilance on 

 the part of both the individual and the 

 state. The consumer should learn to dis- 

 tinguish, as far as possible, the pure from 

 the false, and the state should enact and 

 properly enforce laws for the further pro- 

 tection of the consumer. The necessity of 

 legislative measures has been generally 

 recognized and, as a consequence, inspec- 

 tion laws have been enacted in nearly every 

 civilized country. 



In the United States the inspection of 

 milk, in a primitive way, was carried on in 

 some of the large cities as early as the 

 middle of the last century, and perhaps 



earlier; but it was not until a generation 

 later that milk inspection was placed on a 

 sound chemical basis, and not until still 

 more recently that it has been carried out 

 with the cooperation of the bacteriologist. 



The first really extensive movement to 

 prevent adulteration by official inspection 

 and analytical control was the agitation 

 among agriculturists which led to the estab- 

 lishment of experiment stations and tb'^ 

 enactment of state fertilizer laws. On this 

 occasion it is of special interest to recall 

 that the first experiment station was estab- 

 lished in Connecticut in 1875, largely 

 through the efforts of Professor S. W. 

 Johnson, of the Sheffield Scientific School 

 of Yale University; and after two years' 

 probationary existence at Wesleyan Uni- 

 versity, was permanently located in New 

 Haven. 



Following the example of Connecticut, 

 other states, one by one, established experi- 

 ment stations and enacted suitable fer- 

 tilizer laws, until the movement had ex- 

 tended to all the states using commercial 

 fertilizers in considerable quantities. 



The official inspection work of the states 

 for some years after the establishment of 

 experiment stations was largely confined to 

 plant foods, disregarding foods for man 

 and the lower animals. It is hard to find 

 an adequate explanation for this early 

 solicitude for the rights of the vegetable 

 kingdom, and the years of almost complete 

 neglect of the dietary grievances of man 

 and beast. Certain it is that the adultera- 

 tion of foods for animate beings was quite 

 as general as that of fertilizers, and the 

 welfare of the community sufi'ered to a 

 much more alarming extent thereby; how- 

 ever, it is gratifying to note that this in- 

 consistency in the laws has been remedied 

 by more recent measiires. 



Massachusetts in 1883 and Ohio in 188& 

 enacted comprehensive food and drug laws,. 



