SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The increased attention which is at present 

 directed to artificial butter and its mixtures with 

 dairy butter, and which has been aroused by the 

 attempt of the dairy interest to secure national 

 legislation to restrict the manufacture of oleo- 

 margarine and similar substances, makes a recent 

 report of the Imperial health office at Berlin of 

 great interest to the scientific and general pubiic. 

 The inquiry was undertaken at the demand of the 

 government for the discovery of a butter substi- 

 tute which should, through its cheapness and bet- 

 ter keeping-qualities, prove desirable for the navy 

 and the poorer classes. From a sanitary point of 

 view, the report considers that the butter substi- 

 tutes found in the market are harmless. In all the 

 factories investigated the great cleanliness and 

 care used seemed to make the manufactured arti- 

 cle more appetizing than many dairy butters. It 

 is, however, granted, that, when improperly pre- 

 pared from fats of uncertain cr unhealthy origin, 

 there may be danger of the communication of dis- 

 ease : and it is not always possible to tell whether a 

 fat is from a healthy source or not. Disease, it is 

 true, may be communicated through the milk of 

 an infected animal, but such a condition in a living 

 animal is more readily detected. As the produc- 

 tion of oleo-oil increases, the demand will exceed 

 the supply, and compel the use of fat from doubt- 

 ful sources. This, perhaps, already occurs in some 

 cases. There are records of the discovery of bac- 

 teria and parasites in some butter substitutes, and 

 the question arises whether the heat used at any 

 time during the process of manufacture is suffi- 

 cient to kill them. Low temperatures are the rule 

 in most factories, and it appears that the possibility 

 of injury to health from this source is not exclud- 

 ed. The substitutes can also contain ingredients 

 which may prove injurious by loading down the 

 intestines with material of no nutritive value. 

 Soapstone-powder has been thus used for the pur- 

 pose of giving butter additional weight. Coloring 

 is only objectionable when poisonous dyes are 

 used, but the same objections apply to the color- 

 ing of dairy butters as of substitutes. Aside from 



No. 176. — 1886. 



these injurious contaminations, the question of the 

 sanitary quality of artificial butters must be de- 

 cided by their relative nutritive value and digesti- 

 bility as compared with the natural articles. This 

 question, the report considers, is not yet settled 

 from a scientific stand-point. 



The conclusions derived from the investigations 

 of this subject are stated as follows : " 1. Artificial 

 butter prepared from the fat of healthy animals, 

 aside from a perhaps somewhat smaller digesti- 

 bility in comparison with milk -butter, furnishes 

 no occasion for the acceptation that it can act in- 

 juriously on human health ; 2. It is possible that 

 a part of the artificial butter found in the trade is 

 prepared from such material, and by such methods 

 of manufacture, as would not exclude, with cer- 

 tainty, the danger of the communication to human 

 beings of diseases which can be produced by vege- 

 table organisms or by animal parasites ; 3. It is 

 possible that some artificial butter is prepared from 

 nauseous materials." It is therefore necessary that 

 there should be strict regulation of the commerce 

 in this article, although at present the means of 

 bringing this about are doubtful. The methods of 

 distinguishing between natural and artificial but- 

 ters are reviewed at great length as being the 

 basis upon which any regulation of the industry 

 must be founded. The perfection of the recent 

 processes of manufacture are such that these sub- 

 stances cannot, in most cases, be distinguished 

 from each other by their external appearance, or 

 by the senses in any way, without the aid of physi- 

 cal or chemical investigation. Of the physical 

 methods which have been commonly applied, the 

 report refers to those depending on the determina- 

 tion of the melting-points of the various fats, the 

 specific gravity at certain temperatures, the ap- 

 pearance under the microscope, the examination 

 with the refractometer, and a new method of Pro- 

 fessor Mayers. Almost all of these are considered 

 to be of value only within certain narrow limits, 

 as mixtures of fats and oils are found which corre- 

 spond closely to pure butter. For the practical 

 dairyman, the determination with the areometer, 

 of the specific gravity of the fat melted at 100° C, 

 is regarded as the most available test. While the 

 test is not entirely satisfactory, and cannot com- 



