EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
715 
the medicinal agents employed by him can only be placed 
on such as are of comparative if not absolute purity ; and to 
ensure this, he has only to deal with a respectable druggist, 
and give him a fair price for the required article. Not that 
this will supersede the necessity of his making himself 
conversant with the characters of the drugs he employs, or 
the means required to detect chemical impurities, far from it ; 
it is this very knowledge that will enable him to ensure 
the possession of the object he has in view. 
As in an introductory lecture, published in this journal, 
the above has been fully dwelt upon, we need not now enlarge, 
but we at once proceed to select from and compare the evi- 
dence brought before the Committee of the House of Com- 
mons, which is not yet completed, as the inquiry is to be 
resumed next session. To give, however, some idea of the 
extent of the adulterations carried on, we may be permitted 
to quote most of Dr. II as sail’s evidence : 
Annatto is adulterated with chalk, wheat-flour, rye-flour, 
salt, soap, turmeric, ferruginous earths, Venetian red, and red 
lead. 
Arrow-root , both East and West India, with sago, tapioca, 
and various mixtures and combinations of these. 
Anchovies , by Dutch, French, and Sicilian fish, coloured by 
bole-Armenian and Venetian red. 
Bread , with mashed potatoes, alum, lime, sulphate of 
copper, bones, and other articles. 
Porter, with cocculus indicus, carbonate of soda, worm- 
wood, ginger, orange-powder, sulphate of iron, sulphuric 
acid, alum, oyster-shells, nux vomica, &c. 
Coffee , with chicory, roasted wheat, beans, and rye, and bad 
flour and bones. Chicory itself with the same substances 
and roasted oak-bark, tan, and horses 5 liver, with the addition 
of Venetian red, umber, &c. 
Curry-powder, with ground rice, red lead, &c. 
Gin, with water, sugar, acetate of lead, cayenne, & c. 
Mustard, with powdered linseed, flour, and turmeric. 
Preserves, with salts of copper (chiefly the acetate), and 
ground rice. 
