CHAPTER VI. 
FOODS AND DRUGS AND THEIR ADULTERANTS. 
1. Microscopical Examination of Foods and Drugs.—- 
In the examination of foods and drugs for the detection of 
adulterants the microscope is of very great value; and 
in many cases it furnishes the only satisfactory method of 
analysis. Mr. A. E. Leach says, in his treatise on ‘Food 
Inspection and Analysis”: “The chemical constants of 
many of the adulterants of coffee and the spices do not 
always differ sufficiently from those of the pure foods in 
which they appear to be distinguished therefrom with 
accuracy and confidence by a chemical analysis alone. 
On the other hand, one who is familiar with the appear- 
ance under the microscope of the pure foods, and of the 
starches and various ground substances used as adulter- 
ants, can with certainty identify very minute quantities 
of these materials, when present, with the same ease that 
one can recognize megascopically the most familiar ob- 
jects about him.” 
The starches, already treated in Chapter V, furnish 
perhaps the best examples of a case in which foreign 
materials present may be readily detected under the 
microscope. The identification of such substances as 
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