PURE AND IMPURE FOODS. 



Edited by C. F. Langworthy, Ph.D. 

 Author of " On Citraconic, Itaconic and Mesaconic Acids," " Fish as Food,'' etc. 

 " What a Man Eats He Zr." 



THE USE OF AERATED WATERS. 



According to an article in a recent num- 

 ber of a medical journal, "Whatever the 

 stage of civilization man has reached, he 

 has always made for his use some beverage 

 more or less artificial in its mode of pro- 

 duction, and having certain physiological ef- 

 fects, out of which arise more or less com- 

 plex moral and physiological questions. If 

 a man were made merely to "bask and bat- 

 ten in the woods," a draught of Adam's 

 ale might be all that he would care for or 

 find necessary to quench his thirst. The 

 circumstances of our practical and social 

 life, however, alter the case. In recent 

 years there has been an enormous increase 

 in the manufacture of aerated waters, made 

 to imitate the various natural sparkling or 

 so-called mineral waters, first made arti- 

 ficially by Priestly, who, when residing near 

 a Leeds brewery, impregnated water with 

 "fixed air" or carbonic acid. Thus one 

 product of fermentation became the parent 

 of that numerous class of beverages known 

 as effervescing or non-alcoholic. Priestly 

 may thus be said to have been the founder 

 of the mineral water industry. He set forth 

 his views in "Directions for Impregnating 

 Water with Fixed Air in order to Commu- 

 nicate to it the Peculiar Spirit and Virtues 

 of Pyrmont Water and other Mineral Wa- 

 ters of a Similar Nature," in a tract pub- 

 lished in 1772, and sold for 1 shilling. He 

 speaks of Pyrmont water containing a 

 "fixed air," "an antiseptic principle admin- 

 istered in a great variety of agreeable ve- 

 hicles." The original idea was that these 

 waters should be most useful in preventing 

 scurvy during long sea voyages. 



Dr. Hamer, the assistant medical officer 

 of the London county council, has pub- 

 lished some remarkable statistics which 

 show that nearly half the water estimated 

 to be consumed for drinking purposes in 

 the metropolis is aerated. In 10 years the 

 increase has been prodigious. The number 

 of bottles of aerated waters sold in London 

 increased from 150,000,000 in 1892 to 500,- 

 000,000 in 1902. In 40 years the number of 

 manufacturers of aerated waters in London 

 has quadrupled, 401 in 1861, 1,756 in 1901 ; 

 while the number of brewers has increased 

 only from 3,006 to 3,406. The annual con- 

 sumption of aerated waters in the United 

 Kingdom is calculated to be 3,600,000,000 

 half pints. The average consumption of 

 these fluids by the Londoner per head — 

 man, woman and child — is about a quarter 

 of a pint a day. Even that is only 90 pints 



a year. Taking the consumption of beer as 

 31 gallons a head of the population per an- 

 num, it is obvious that there is plenty of 

 leeway to make up ere the aerated waters 

 have much effect on the beer trade. Prob- 

 ably, too, this great consumption of aerated 

 water is not unassociated with the inroads 

 of whiskey as a beverage, diluted, as it so 

 frequently is, with some aerated water, nat- 

 ural or artificial. 



"There is little ground, therefore, for 

 hope that this enormous consumption of 

 gas-charged waters is due to their displac- 

 ing beer or other alcoholic beverages ; nor 

 is their consumption to be taken as an in- 

 dex of our increasing sobriety as a nation. 

 The increase may be more safely ascribed 

 partly to improvements in manufacture 

 leading to reductions in price ; to such bev- 

 erages being thus brought within the reach 

 of a larger class ; and partly to a popular 

 belief that, by using mineral waters, there 

 is less chance of contracting zymotic dis- 

 eases. On this point such information as 

 exists is reassuring, for, as far as it goes, 

 it bears out the more or less generally ac- 

 cepted idea. Thus Abba found that aerated 

 waters inhibited the action of certain bacte- 

 ria which are occasionally present in nat- 

 ural water. Cholera bacilli, it has been 

 stated, are destroyed in half an hour to 3 

 hours. 



"In places, therefore, where the purity 

 of the ordinary water as regards the water- 

 borne germs of zymotic disease is open to 

 suspicion, there would appear to be some 

 advantage in using aerated water. As re- 

 gards other germs, however, the effect of 

 which, if any, on the human system is but 

 ill understood, ordinary tap-water would 

 appear to be at least as free, if not much 

 freer, from them than much of the aerated 

 water now put on the market. The best 

 manufacturers, no doubt, take great and 

 successful pains to produce water of high 

 initial purity, and adopt adequate precau- 

 tions to avoid it's after contamination dur- 

 ing the process which it undergoes. This, 

 however, is not the case with all, so in view 

 of the importance which the trade has now 

 attained, it is eminently desirable that it 

 should be brought under control by the au- 

 thorities on lines corresponding to those 

 adopted in Italy several years ago." 



473 



BREAD AND BREAD MAKING. 

 In the opinion of the author of one of 

 the recent bulletins of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture there is hardly 



